Happy (Pinterest) Hallowe'en

Lately, I have been hooked on Pinterest. The ideas on their website are incredible. This year's entire Halloween theme was inspired by Pinterest. Have a boo at what we've been up to...

My daughter is in preschool and she wanted to give them all something spooky so when we saw the idea of pipe cleaner spiders (on a lollipop), we knew we were headed in the right direction. Now, her teachers specifically requested that the children do not share candy with the class so we thought it would be appropriate to attach our little creepy crawlers to pencils. My daughter was so excited to pick up the supplies with me and they were all easily available at our local dollar store. 

Halloween coincides with my little girl's birthday so we were also responsible for today's Halloween snack. I ended up baking a batch of strawberry mini mummy cupcakes - recipe courtesy of Martha Stewart.

The fruit and vegetable platter was too cute to resist but the tricky part was that I had to incorporate 3 different fruits and 3 different vegetables AND still make it look like a jack-o-lantern.

In case you were looking closely, I added apples to the platter in the morning (to avoid serving yucky brown apples), but of course, I forgot to snap a photograph before we headed out the door.

This simplified version of the platter was for my son's class. I was pleasantly surprised to hear the children ooh and ah when they saw it this afternoon.

For the finale - MY JELLYFISH COSTUME - I'll have to admit that this might've been the easiest task as it literally took me all of 5 minutes to tape together.

Happy Hallowe'en folks!

Japanese Okonomiyaki

A friend promised to teach me how to cook this traditional Japanese pizza/pancake called Okonomiyaki and we finally got around to it this summer. The process was straight forward and easy. I have only picked up a few of the key ingredients since and we had the craving for them again.

We've often eaten at Japa Dog, a food stand that serves Japanese-style hotdogs, and we happened to have the wieners and buns on hand. The result, homemade okonomiyaki dogs!

Now, I can't wait to try these with cabbage (one of the ingredients that we didn't have) next time.

Sugar Factory Lollipop

It looks as though I'm not the only one who's intrigued by lollipops. The Sugar Factory in Las Vegas has glamorized and bedazzled the traditional lollipop stick! Unfortunately, I can't think of anyone who would appreciate this version of glam pop.

Bakerella

I love Bakerella's cake pop craze but all that decorating is much too time consuming for this busy mum. I've come the the conclusion that all baked goods to look 'cuter' simply with the addition of a Wilton lollipop stick!

At the end of the school year last June, a lovely parent (who was also a darn good baker) shared some sugar cookies with the class. They were buttery, fluffy and just pure perfection. Can you believe she was nice enough to share her secrets with me?

This is the cookie that became of that recipe. It was a fragile dough that required a lot of patience. I was so pleased with the outcome of these lollipop sugar cookies!

Next on the list of 'cuteness:' marshmallow pops. We had the ingredients in the pantry and the kids wanted to make something special for their friends. So again, we decorated in the direction of Bakerella and decided to cover some marshmallows with Wilton's chocolate candy melts and nonpereils.

I didn't realize the speed required to put these treats together and my younger child had some difficulties decorating them on her own. She was quite proud of her girly marshmallow treats by the end of it.

Their friends were sure surprised, and thrilled recipients of the marshmallow pops. It was a huge hit and we'll have to make them again - thanks Bakerella, for inspiring this mum and her two miniature assistants!