Crayon Cupcake Anyone?

Last week, I saw one of my husband's New Year's Resolutions was to get rid of 100 things for the New Year.  I like the sound of that.  With all the "New Year" organizing I've been doing, I came across a lot of things that could have better uses.  What better way to use these when you have a sick kid at home and can't leave the house all day:

With four little sets of hands helping you, the next thing you have this:

And you can do this:

Put it in the oven at 350' until they melt and you get this.  They may not be frosted or edible, but they sure are pretty:

At the end of a long long day, with no Calgon to take you away, at least while you make dinner you get this:

We originally made heart shaped crayons last year, but I saw this post a while ago and though that it was time to junk my metal cupcake pan anyways.

Super Mario Brothers Quilt

You know by now my kids are OBSESSED with Super Mario Brothers.  My oldest son has been begging me to make him a new quilt with a fuzzy back like his brothers.  A few months ago, we found some Super Mario fabric here and it was orange, his favorite color.  The plan was for me to cut out the squares and teach him how to sew while making the blanket himself.  However, the time never presented itself, so I decided to surprise him with it as a Christmas gift.  Unfortunately, the outer edge fabric (striped) didn't arrive until Christmas afternoon (yes, we get mail here on Christmas).  So, I finally finished it last night and had it on his bed waiting when he got back from skiing.

He was so surprised and told me to thank me he's going to "try" to be good every single day now.

Of course, he asked me to get more fabric because Addison was quite sad that he didn't have a matching one on his bed.  I made him a batman backed one a few years ago, so I was hoping he wouldn't want one.  They also asked for matching pillowcases. If only there were 24 waking hours in a day....

The front:

The fuzzy back:

Close up- kind of makes you see how they like this so much, the characters are so fun and colorful, I almost want one for me ;)

Busy Cooking: World's Best Waffles

As I've said before, when you live away from home, sometimes you have to be resourceful to find the foods that you enjoy or even learn how to make them.  One thing that Japan is totally lacking is a place to go out for a typical breakfast.  Sometimes you can find toast or a dropped egg, maybe even a pancake or waffle, but it's not the same and it's not all in the same place on the same menu.  I LOVE to go out for breakfast, especially to a place that I know make a good waffle.  I know I posted about these really good buttermilk waffles before, but these "most delicious waffles" have captured my heart.

My mom sent me a food network magazine around Halloween and I started searching their site and was intrigued by this recipe, Waffles of Insane Greatness.  I've made them at least four times in the last month.  They are the closest to a restaurant waffle I have made.  They stay crispy after they come out of the waffle iron- many times other waffles I have made get soggy and the recipe recommends to warm them in an oven until serving- not these!

Here's the recipe, the amounts mentioned here are doubled from the Food Network's recipe, a single batch just doesn't cut it for our family:

1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 tsp sugar
1 cup milk ( I used low-fat, recipe called for whole)
1 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
2/3 cup oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

In medium sized bowl, mix together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar.  Set aside.

In another mixing bowl (preferably with a pouring spout), mix together milk, buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla.  Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet ones, mix until incorporated, may be lumpy, that's okay.  Let sit for 30 minutes before cooking.  Cook in preheated waffle iron.  This made us 7 large belgian sized waffles.

Our Christmas 2010

We put some last minute homemade ornaments on the tree.  As a kid, these were my favorite ornaments on our tree. I'm not sure what grade we were in, but my mom has a set for at least the four oldest kids.  I loved looking at mine every year, so I had my kids make their own snowman and gingerbread man (it's just painted cardboard):

Guess which ones are Hazel's:

And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care:

The presents were placed under the tree, all organized by color coded wrapping paper (go Dave!):

Then, the kids woke up:

We opened some of our presents via webcam for our family to see.  The kids like showing their presents to the computer:

And some of our favorite gifts:
A stuffed Mario for Nathaniel:

A slinky for Addison:

A giant parking garage for Owen:

A doll with car seat for Hazel:

Her first nail polish too:

Flip boards to practice skating:

A new homemade fuzzy bathrobe:

For Dave, the hat on his head and the latest version of Kindle (that should make my dad happy):

And my favorite, a punching bag- something all mothers with young children should have to take out their frustrations on and stay in shape too :)

I hope your day was as fun as ours!

Handpainted Super Mario Dolls

You have to know by now that my kids are obsessed with Mario Brothers.  Here is my oldest son's Christmas list for this year:

As you can see, he's not so good with the penmanship with non-lined paper.  At least he warned Santa:

They already have stuffed Mario and Luigi dolls and the only one I'd seen besides them that was on the list was Fire Mario.  It was either make the dolls or make a dress-up set for their stuffed Mario and Luigi's.  Seeing that I had to start working on this with only 2 weeks before Christmas, I opted to make the dolls.

Last summer, I bought these wooden peg dolls from this etsy shop, gemmielou.  I was going to use them to paint knights when we studied castles in the spring.  However, recently, I saw a post on Filth Wizardry where she painted Star Wars characters for her daughter's birthday (hers are so awesome, it really will make you realize how little artistic talent I have- I only hope to be as good as my brother or sister someday). I went to the the sound of design flickr page she got inspired by for the design and there was a set of "cartooned" Mario characters.  I used that for most of them, but had to make up a few, namely the superhero and rockstar ones.

 

From left to right, for the Luigis (right to left for the Marios), cat, fire, ice, propeller, rockstar, superhero, and regular.  I didn't do the Mega.  

To paint the dolls, I used my kids washable crayola poster paint.  I lightly sketched some of the stuff on with pencil.  Everything was done with one of the paintbrushes that came with a Crayola watercolor set. I invested in an 8 pack of colored sharpies this summer, so I used those for some very fine details, like the streaks in the rockstars hair, tattoos on their sidearms, and chesthair.  Once the paint was dry, I brushed each with a hefty coating of ModPodge (holy awesomeness!!!).  It goes on kind of cloudy white, but when it dries, they are nice and glossy and keeps the paint from chipping.  WOW!  I've been afraid to open mine for months, not knowing what to expect.  Be prepared for me to be using a lot of this stuff now.  The only thing is since I used washable paint, the more I brushed, the more I risked dissolving the paint on the characters (see the bottom right of rockstar Luigi).

It took me about four hours to do in total, but it was well worth it.  I hope my kids have many hours of creative, imaginative Mario play with these dolls!

Christmas Eve in Japan

This is a quick post, but it's something that makes me chuckle.  Since it's our first Christmas here, one of my neighbors who has spent several Christmases here, gave me some tips.  If you don't like to bake, you can always find a lovely little Christmas cake- they do not really do cookies here, but they can make a cake look very pretty. If you need to go out last minute shopping, there's no rush, stores are not too crowded, and they don't close early.  Also, if you are done opening gifts on Christmas morning and you forgot batteries, you can always go out and get them because Christmas day is a normal day to Japanese people.  Most importantly, all Starbucks are open.

The one thing she warned me about though, was to beware of Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas Eve. It struck me as odd that KFC would be a crowded nightmare on Christmas Eve.  I asked my Japanese teacher why and she said they associate the American holiday with eating turkey, but since most of them have tiny ovens or no oven at all, they can't cook a turkey, so they eat chicken.  You know, for the first time ever, I found whole oven roasting chickens at our local grocery store, most were precooked, but there were a few that you could cook on your own.  Guess what I have in my freezer now?

Well, I proceeded to ask another Japanese friend about the KFC situation.  He pointed out that they have a clever ad campaign that makes Japanese people think they should have the custom of eating fried chicken on Christmas Eve.  Now, I wanted to witness the madness first hand, so in the early afternoon, we went to the food court of our grocery store.  Here's the KFC- yes, the colonel is dressed up like Santa:

Then, this was on the side:

Check out the massive amounts of these buckets.  I didn't know Japanese people would even want a bucket that big of chicken.

I wanted to go back at night to witness the long line and see people filling up the buckets but I couldn't bring myself to leave the house.

I was talking to my brother on the phone today and he was saying how they were getting together with some friends to get Chinese take out.  Then, it clicked, KFC is the Japanese equivalent of our Chinese food.  Dave swore Chinese food on Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve was only my family's tradition, but I asked him why there was always a 2 hour wait.  So there you have it- they probably think we're strange for wanting Chinese on those days too.

On Christmas Eve, the stores selling the Christmas cakes get very busy too.  Check out Baskin Robbins selections for this year.

Here's the room full of the preorders- quite a bit for a country that recognizes the holiday but does not celebrate it.

Oh, and look at the sundae selections, too bad they didn't have stuff like this at the BR in the US:

This made me chuckle because I think for the most part, many of us would not even think of KFC as our go to place for a Christmas Eve meal.  We could not bring ourselves to follow the Japanese Christmas Eve tradition to fill up a bucket with chicken- instead, we stuck with a family tradition of making swedish meatballs.

However you and your family choose to celebrate Christmas Eve, I hope it's a good one!

Cinnamon Iced Gingerbread Cupcakes

I know I've been blowing this blog up with posts about food, but hold onto your hats, these cupcakes might blow you away.  Yesterday, one of my friends that also loves to bake cupcakes, sent me a link to an incredibly good gingerbread cake recipe.  It was perfect timing because I was wanting to make something gingerbready for the kids to try since they have had nothing gingerbread flavored yet this Christmas.  I remember as a kid, my mom used to make a box gingerbread mix and serve it to us with whipped cream- throw your box mixes away now, this will knock your socks off.

Cake:
OVEN:  350'
4 oz fresh grated ginger (1 cup)
1 cup light molasses
1 cup sugar
1 cup oil
2 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 cup water
2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs

Icing:
6 TBSP butter
6 oz. cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
3-4 TBSP milk
2-3 cup confectioner's sugar

For the cake, mix together oil, sugar, and molasses (I used the whisk on my kitchenaid).  Boil water and add the baking soda into it, mix, then add to the molasses mixture.  Grate ginger and add it into the molasses mixture.

(I did not have ginger and couldn't get to the store to find some, so I did a bad thing and substituted in ground ginger (1/3 cup).  I read several things online saying they are not comparable, but it was the only thing I could do and I think mine taste great, however, next time I make them, I will be sure to have fresh ginger.)

In separate bowl, mix together flour, cinnamon, cloves, and pepper.  Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet, continue mixing.  Mix in the 2 eggs.

Pour into prepared cake pans or cupcake tins ( I made one mini loaf, 24 mini cupcakes, and 12 regular sized cupcakes).  The mini cupcakes took about 15 minutes, regular sized about 20, and the mini loaf cake about 25-30 minutes.

For the icing, cream together butter and cream cheese, add in cinnamon and vanilla.  Add in 1 tbsp milk, then 1 cup confectioner's sugar.  Continue alternating sugar and milk additions until frosting is desired consistency.

I cut the mini loaf cake into three layers and iced in the middle.  This is what I think we'll leave out for Santa tonight, so Dave and I can eat it later :)