Oct 4th, 2010 // Just for Fun

Look at what we found at the pumpkin patch this weekend! She refused to look at the camera, but who can blame her? It was tooooo sunny.

The sun didn’t stop this guy from smiling on his first-ever pony ride. He has always refused in the past, but this time he was an incredibly willing participant.

Our trip to the Fall Harvest festival not only yielded some pretty great times, but it also yielded some fantastic looking pumpkins four of them hitched a ride back to our house at the end of the day.

Now that we have so many pumpkins laying around, it’s time to get cooking! We couldn’t be more thrilled to announce that it’s pumpkin week on CWMK. We’ll be posting pumpkin recipes all week long. Mmmmm… my mouth is already watering.
Oct 3rd, 2010 // Dinner, Most Popular, Recipes, Veggie Friendly

My kid and husband are big fans of Ina Garten’s Spinach in Puff Pastry recipe. We’ve made it many times making little adjustments along the way. This time turned it into a deep dish pie and my kid went wild. The birthday boy was pretty pleased as well.

I think part of the kid appeal of this dish is sprinkling out flour and using the rolling pin.

After we finished rolling, I turned my back for one minute and turned around again to find that my kid had spelled his name in the flour. This made me melt.

We made the spinach mixture and then piled it up on top of the puff pastry in a square baking pan.

After topping it off with another sheet of pastry, we painted it with an eggwash, popped it in the oven and watched it puff right up. Now for the recipe… Read more after the jump…
Oct 1st, 2010 // Appetizers, Healthy, Veggie Friendly

I know it doesn’t look like much but this salad is truly amazing and dressed to impress. It’s my go-to special occasion salad and it never fails me. It is so easy to make and it’s one of the birthday boy’s favorites.

I’ll admit that my kid did not have even one bite BUT the next day he finally tried lettuce for the first time and immediately declared that he liked it and ate like a rabbit. I think this awesome salad is in his future. Now for the recipe…
Read more after the jump…
Sep 30th, 2010 // Appetizers, Recipes, Veggie Friendly

When one of our readers, Shannon, suggested we make a corn chowder I immediately began searching for recipes. I just knew my husband and kid would both love it. Turns out most chowder recipes call for heavy cream. (Duh!) I’m a fan of heavy cream when it’s whipped. I also love it frozen – hello? who doesn’t like ice cream? But I really hate to use it in soup. It just seems so unnecessary and fattening and filling and unhealthy. After loads of searching I found one recipe that seem like it could be good even though it did not call for heavy cream.

We wound up using Mark Bittman’s Basic Corn Chowder recipe as the base of our own corn chowder creation. We made quite a few revisions which, in my humble opinion, improved the final outcome.

My kid loved the idea that the corn cobs were a part of the recipe. He helped put them in the water while wearing his new Halloween costume. You can see the cuff of it in the picture. He’s going to be a “spaceman” aka an astronaut.

The soup was a huge hit especially with my kid. We the leftovers tonight for dinner and he ate every last bite of it. Now for the recipe…
Read more after the jump…
Sep 29th, 2010 // Desserts, Picky Busters

I’ve got a whole birthday dinner full of recipes to tell you about, but tonight we’re doing dessert first. My favorite part of this creation was how the chocolate sauce formed a “magic shell” on the ice cream. The waffle makes a great, light cake-like base with only a hint of chocolate flavor.

Here’s a little background on the origin of this dessert: when I was a kid I had this cookbook. Oh how I loved the super hip 70s pictures and all the clever recipes inside. One of my favorites was an ice cream sundae made with an Eggo waffle as the base. If I had the cookbook in front of me I’d give you all the details of this amazing treat. But for now you’ll have to settle for my up-scale recreation. (Hmmm, I wonder if that cookbook is still sitting on a shelf in my childhood home. Mom?)

Anyway, the base of the recipe is the God Mamma’s Healthy Waffles, but with 3 tablespoons of Ghirardelli hot coco mix in place of the agave. I don’t know why we bothered with making healthy waffles for the base when we proceeded to smother them in ice cream, chocolate and real whipped cream.

The birthday boy and the big boy didn’t seem to miss the Eggo waffle. They both devoured their desserts in seconds and the big boy asked for more chocolate waffles in the morning. Now for the recipe…
Read more after the jump…