They were super easy and so much fun!

All you need is prepared pancake mix, chocolate chips, bacon, and whipped topping.

Step 1:

Pour your pancake mix in a small circle and a larger circle.  Make sure to place them close enough together so that they will touch as the batter spreads out.

Step 2:

Flip the pancakes once and cook until done.

Step 3:

Have fun decorating your snowman!  Bacon for a scarf, chocolate chips for face and buttons, and whipped topping for snow.  You could really use lots of different yummy treats to decorate him so have some fun with it!

Be sure to let your kids have some fun decorating their own snowman pancakes.

My 3 year old loved placing the chocolate chips just right on her pancake…and then eating them right off as soon as she was done.

My son made a one-eyed “Snowclops” on his plate.

This was a fun treat for our family and one that I definitely plan to make again.

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Pasta Noodle Recipe:

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After the dough has “sat” overnight, it becomes more elastic (much less “stiff”).   Knead and play with the dough.  The more it is played with the better your noodles will be!

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Form noodles by making dozens and dozens of “little worms”.  You can also roll the dough out into a sheet and cut the noodles out in thin strips.
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These homemade noodles are a great staple in homemade soups or as the starch in pasta primavera!  Our kids love to eat them with caramelized onions, along with fried cabbage and ground pork.

I love making cut-out sugar cookies with my kids during the holidays, but let’s be honest…it makes a huge mess and takes a long time!  If you’re looking for a quick way to make Halloween cookies with your kids, check out these adorable Candy Corn Sugar Cookies! 

No cookie cutters, no rolling out the dough…so these can be done lickety-split.

You will need:

*Your favorite sugar cookie dough recipe

*red & yellow food color

*loaf pan

Prepare your cookie dough as per your recipe for cut out cookies (not drop cookies).

Divide your dough into thirds.  Color 1/3 yellow, 1/3 orange (use color mixing chart on your food coloring drops box), and leave the last 1/3 plain.

Line a loaf pan with plastic cling wrap or wax paper.  Press yellow dough into bottom of pan, followed by orange & white dough.  Press firmly.  Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight for best results.

We didn’t do a very good job of splitting our dough evenly into thirds…but it turned out cute anyway!

When the dough is firm, turn loaf pan upside down & remove your dough.  Look at those layers!

Using a sharp knife, cut your dough into 1/4 inch slices. 

Cut each slice into triangles.  Discard (or eat!) the ends that are rounded if it bothers you.

Spread out triangles onto a cookies sheet & bake according to your recipe’s directions.  Be sure to pull them out before they get browned on the top…the colors will not be very vibrant if they bake too long!  I learned the hard way with my first batch…

I love how easy these cookies are to shape, and you don’t have to flour the counter, roll out the dough, use cookie cutters, re-roll your dough, and repeat the whole process fifty times. 

Allow to cool & enjoy!

Recently we made homemade butter. Stuart looked at me funny when I told him what we had done that day. He said, “You did what?”

Yep, homemade butter.

I talked to Nicholas a little bit about how butter is made. I explained that basically you start with heavy cream and mix it up until it becomes butter. The cream is full of little fat globules but they are all separate and lonely. Once the mixing starts, fat globule Bob bumps into fat globule Joe and they become friends so they stick together. As more mixing happens, they bump into fat globule Mike and fat globule Tom and they all decide to stick together. The little group of friends keep bumping into more fat globules until everyone is stuck together and they have a big party. And then you have butter. Nicholas loved the story and couldn’t wait to start mixing up some cream.

Making Butter at Home with Kids

All we used were some clean baby food jars, a few glass marbles, heavy whipping cream, music, and manpower.

Nicholas started with filling the jars about 3/4 full of cream.

He added two marbles to help with mixing and put the lid on. I double checked to make sure that the lid was on REALLY tight.

Then we put on some fun music and we danced around while we shaking the jars. It doesn’t really matter how you shake them or how hard you shake them but you need to keep them moving.

It’s best to do this with two people so you can trade off and let your arm rest. After 5 minutes, he had a nice whipped topping.

Then around 10 minutes, we could hear a more distinct “thud” sound as a ball of butter was now shaking around in the jar. There was still a lot of liquid that we drained off but in the end we had real butter. It tasted fine right out of the jar but we added a pinch of salt just to make it better.

It was yummy on crackers for an after school snack and would be a great activity or treat to have while camping or traveling.  Check out our KOACampfire community for more ideas of things to do and ways to entertain kids while outdoors.

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Cut 1/4th of the apple out, and core the remaining portion.  Add something sticky – we used cream cheese and peanut butter, but I bet nutella would be great too!

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We made some with horns, some apple monster faces with worms crawling out of their heads, and of course, lots of crazy eyes.  These were a hit with my preschoolers..

Have you played with your food?  Or done an activity with monsters?  Let me know!  I’d love to feature you in an upcoming post!

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Do you have any tips on how to save money on meals when you are “on the go”?  I’d love to hear about them!

• Canned cinnamon rolls
• Eggs
• Milk

Yup, it’s that easy. Quirky E and her siblings smashed the rolls till they were nice and flat, then we put the pan into the oven to cook them until they were just done – probably about ten minuets or so. Then they broke and beat the eggs (their favorite part) and after getting the flattened rolls out of the oven they soaked them in the egg and dropped them onto the frying pan. Make as traditional free ch toast at this point. Yummy, and my daughter loves knowing that “she made it”.

Want another kid-cooking recipe? Check out Esther from Laugh With Us, her daughter had fun making french toast too! And this post was originally inspired by college student, Meaghan from Clutsy Cooking, who made these in her dorm room.
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What are your kids favorite foods to make?

To make the smoothies:

Chop up the Kale, Spinach or Collard Greens and fill your blender to the brim.   We prefer Kale as it is more nutritious than spinach with 25% more vitamin A,  higher levels of Vitamin C and Calcium – it is a true powerfood!  It also tastes better than Collard Greens which has a spicy aftertaste.

Once you have your blender full of kale, add half a cup of juice.  Blend well.

Top with 2 bananas and as many berries as you want.  I think we added about 2 cups worth.  Blend till smooth.

Serve immediately or freeze into Popsicles.  If you want to make sorbet, freeze it for 1-2hours, till it just starts getting ice crystals.  Then stir.  Re-freeze.  Wait an hour or two and then stir it again.  At this point you can re-freeze and it will stay soft.  Our Kale Sorbet is the perfect after-dinner dessert for my dairy-intolerant kiddos.  Yummy and good for them.  Who needs to eat veggies for supper when we can have them for dessert!  Don’t want to have Kale smoothies?  Check out The Local Cook for Kale Chips - they sound great!

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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Kenmore. The opinions and text are all mine.

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Share your tip or commiserate with your meal time “challenge” in the MomLoop discussion below. For a chance to win the new iPad2, ‘like’ Kenmore on Facebook (be sure to let me know you “liked” them in your reply).

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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Kenmore. The opinions and text are all mine.

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How to make your own felt cupcakes:

We first cut the felt into thick strips, about 3 inches tall and 2 feet long (but you’ll need to be longer if your felt isn’t very thick).  Roll it tightly into a “muffin”.  I then used a rubber band to hold it together as I tacked the edges closed.   Once you have it in a “muffin” trace the circle on your other felt so the top “icing” matches perfectly.  I added a “button” of icing on the top for decoration.

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Once you have your felt “food” product created and tacked together, get some hot water and dip your finished product into the water.  Take it out so it can cool.  The hot water binds the felt to each other so your piece is less likely to come apart.  We stuck ours in the dryer for additional “staying power”.  Note:  This trick only works with wool felt, not with the synthetic stuff.
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I love wool felt!