Kid Friendly Friday - Shell Necklaces

Hello! Welcome to Kid Friendly Friday where we share things other parents might like to do with their kids. Recipes....crafts....book reviews....giveaways....you name it! Join along by linking your post (old or new) below.

Last weekend I spent some time on Sanibel Island collecting shells. When I collect shells, I collect with a project in mind. HERE is what we did last time. This time I got the pretty thin, shiny ones so I could poke holes in them (with a large safety pin). Some of them broke in half while doing it. I tried to poke into a towel so the stress was equally distributed. The girls then picked out which ones they wanted to use, laid them out in the order they wanted, and I helped (lots of help) them string and tie them on embroidery floss. I also put clasps on them but the pictures don't show it. Easy, fun, almost free :)

What have you been up to this week? Enjoy your weekend!

Kids in the Kitchen - Pickle Rolls

Today over at Sacred and Profane a new Blogstyle Iron Chef ingredient was unveiled. Pickles. The recipe has to have pickles as a main ingredient. I hadn't picked out an after school snack or a Kids in the Kitchen recipe for this week yet so this was PERFECT. We used to make these all of the time in college. I haven't made them since then (that's a LONG time) but don't have any other recipes that use pickles. It's a stretch!

Cream Cheese Rolls

Ingredients: Pickles, cream cheese, and lunch meat (I like it with ham but all we had was turkey and it worked well).

Lay the lunch meat on a plate (double it if it's thin). Spread on cream cheese. Put a pickle in the center and roll it up. We would slice them for cute looking appetizers but for snack just eat the whole roll! I like to do them with the little pickles but pickle spears work as well. Simple and tasty. Bigs favorite part was fishing the pickle out of the jar. Mimi refused to use a pickle at all.

Go over to A Little Fun With Me and Lu to check out more Kids in the Kitchen posts! And if you have a good pickle recipe submit it for the Iron Chef competition at Sacred and Profane.

I googled pickle recipes and really want to try pickle bread, pickle soup, and pickle cheeseburgers.....but just not in time for the competition. There's only so much pickle my family will put up with :)

FNCCC Assignment #7 - Bobby and Jaime Deen

Bobby and Jamie Deen, help their mom, Paula Deen, run the Savannah restaurant The Lady and Sons. If anyone has been there I would LOVE to hear about it :) They all have numerous cookbooks and are now hosts of their own Food Network food and travel show, Road Tasted. I have not seen it but if they anything like their mama, they are sure to be a hit. I have seen them on Paula's shows quite a bit.

This week is supposed to be featuring Bobby and Jamie, but they do not have recipes listed on their Food Network site. If you have a cookbook of theirs, feel free to use it. If you want to search "Lady and Sons" on Food Network, you will find a few. Otherwise, just do one of the hundreds of Paula Deen recipes. I must warn you that her stuff is not always too healthy (bacon wrapped, fried macaroni and cheese anyone?) so if you want to healthify one, have at it. We'll post on Oct. 14 - see you then!

Wordless Wednesday - Missing Tooth

Her first official missing tooth (the unofficial lost tooth was lost in a flipping out of bed accident when she was two). And the gemstone tooth fairy thing was a HUGE hit!

Check out more Wordless/Wordful Wednesday posts HERE , HERE or HERE.

FNCCC Week 6 - Bobby Flay

I got my recipe out of Bobby Flay's "Mesa Grill Cookbook" from which I want to try about a dozen recipes. I chose Queso Fundido with Roasted Poblano Vinaigrette.

WOW! Loved, loved, loved it (and it got great reviews from all my spicy loving friends). The poblano vinaigrette is amazing and made the queso special. Leftovers warmed up nicely and still had wonderful flavor. I will make this again in a heartbeat.

Here are the roasted poblanos. Aren't they pretty?

QUESO FUNDIDO WITH ROASTED POBLANO VINAIGRETTE

1 TBS unsalted butter

1 TBS all-purpose flour (I used wheat)

1 cup whole milk

3 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1/8 tsp freshly ground pepper

8 ounces fresh goat cheese, cut into 8 slices (I used 8 ounces of crumbled)

Roasted Poblano Vinaigrette (recipe follows)

2 TBS chopped fresh cilantro

Tortilla chips

1. Preheat the broiler

2. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cook for one minute. Whisk in the milk and cooked until slightly thickened. Remove from heat and stir in the Monterey Jack cheese; season with the salt and pepper.

3. Scrape the mixture into an 8-inch cast iron skillet and place slices of goat cheese over top. Pu the pan under the broiler and brown until the goat cheese is golden on top. Remove from the over an drizzle with the poblano vinaigrette and sprinkle with cilantro. Serve with chips.

Roasted Poblano Vinaigrette

2 poblano chilies, roasted, peeled, seeded, and chopped
2 TSB cold water
1 TBS red wine vinegar
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tsp honey
1/4 cup canola oil
salt and pepper to taste

Combine everything in a blender and puree until smooth. This can be made up to 8 hours in advance and refrigerated.

Next week we will tackle a recipe from Bobby and Jamie Deen - no recipes on FN (although you can do a search for "Lady and Sons" and can find some) so you can do a Paula Deen recipe instead (it's a long time until we get to her again and she has a TON of recipes :) If you have one of their cookbooks, feel free to use a recipe from there! - post October 14, 2009

Can't wait to see what you are cooking!

The One Where I Do Not Get Eaten By An Alligator

Nope. I didn't. I didn't even see an alligator (insert sad sigh here) but a dream that I had a few nights ago made me think that I may have been in danger while exploring Sanibel Island (heavily gator populated, I guess). You see, this weekend my husband and I went away. Alone. The only catch is that he was playing a tournament and I got to spend most of the weekend alone. This isn't a problem for me. I like the solitude. I like not having to speak. How else can I think about what to blog collect my thoughts?

The typical mode of transportation in Sanible is a bicycle. I figured I would spend the day biking about the island. My idea of relaxation is moving. Yes, I cannot sit still for long. The island is about 12 miles long and I was determined to bike every mile of it.

I rented my bike for 4 hours and set out to find a place for breakfast. The bike rental guy said that The Island Cow had "a killer breakfast." The Island Cow brought out a plate full full of what looked like FunFetti muffins. This is when I started to miss my family. There were three, one for each girl, but instead they were all for me! Too bad they weren't anything special. My breakfast quesadillas WERE something special. There's something about getting to smother your breakfast in habenero sauce. I forgot to rent a lock so I was pretty anxious by the end of the meal hoping that my bike was still there when I returned. I scarfed down my meal and was on my way.


What a beautiful day. This is one bike friendly town. The paths are wide, they go everywhere and there are fines for cars not stopping for them. Nice. I forgot to look at the map, but hey, how many ways could there be to get from one end of the island to the other? I saw Cheeseburger Cheeseburger and made a mental note of a lunch stop there. After about a half an hour I saw Cheeseburger Cheeseburger again. Yes, Mrs. I Don't Need a Map just rode in a very big circle. So I pulled over, got it out, and figured how I was going to make it to the end of the island. One wrong turn. Simple enough.



The ride was amazing. I pulled over about each half hour to re-lube up with sunscreen. Last time I was at the beach I fried. Not happening this time. I found out that once you hit the end of Sanibel and it goes into Captiva there are no longer bike paths so I decided it was time to hit up the beach, conveniently located where the bike path ends. I left my bike (still holding my breath that nobody would steal my sweet ride) and, still moving, wandered the beach. Turner beach is perfect, deserted, calming. I found some cool shells that I am going to have the girls make into necklaces (always a project on my mind).




On my way back down the island I wanted to see how fast I could go. I made pretty good time (despite being cut off by someone in a big truck that looked surprisingly like John Gruden, complete with scowl) and by the time I made it back to the rental place I had an extra half hour to cover the lighthouse end of the island. I came across a Dairy Queen and amended my note from earlier to make THIS my lunch stop (you've got to break the rules a little when the kids are not around). A little later I came across Pinnocchio's Ice Cream and remembered that I had to stop at this island hot spot. DQ would have to wait. Lighthouse beach was too crowded for my taste so I hauled butt back to the rental shop so I wouldn't have to pay for any extra time (I am cheap). Wouldn't you know it I got behind a slow biker about the last mile (which I hate to pass) and made it back with one minute to spare.



I couldn't choose between Sanibel Crunch and Dirty Sand dollar for lunch, so got a bit of both. Loved the toasted coconut in the Sanibel crunch. I did head up to Captiva for another walk on the beach but again, too crowded and there looked like a storm was brewing on the horizon, so I didn't stay long. The town itself is really cute. Everyone has their house labeled with a colorful sign with names like, Pair-O-Dice, Mellow Yellow, and Angel's Wings.



I went back to the hotel to enjoy a fully loaded veggie pizza (because I could) and watch fluff TV. I biked about 25 miles, wasn't at all sun burnt and didn't get eaten by a gator. It was a good day.

Kid Friendly Friday

I have got nothing for Kid Friendly Friday today. It has just been one of those weeks. BUT I had a great snack yesterday that I posted for Kids in the kitchen....so I'm using that :) It was a Popcorn Ball Ice Cream Cone it got great reviews from everyone we gifted one to. See pictures and recipe HERE.

So what have you been up to this week??? Post your link below. Enjoy your weekend!