Star Wars Party & Cakes

Star Wars Party!

For my kiddo's birthday, we had a Star Wars Party.

Each child went through several stations throughout the party to go from Jedi Padawan Learner to Jedi Knight.

First, in the invitation, I asked each guest to wear a white shirt and khaki pants.  I made everyone a Jedi Padawan Learner Vest and a braided clip on hair piece.  As each kiddo went through Jedi training, they received the rest of their Jedi Padawan gear.

For their vests, I used a large bolt of brown felt.  I cut it into a rectangle.  Then for half the rectangle, I cut a vertical slit down the front.  Then I gathered some brown rope, and tied it around their middle.

For the clip on hair braid, I bought a wig from the dollar store.  I cut it into sections.  I braided a thin section, tied off the end with leather rope.  I hot glued the other end to an alligator clip I purchased at Michael's.  Then I simply clipped the piece to the back of their hair.  

At their first station, we discussed some of the things Jedi Knights needed to learn how to do and things they needed to know.  Mostly we talked about being kind toward others, protecting others who couldn't protect themselves, and giving assistance to others without being asked, and without asking for a reward.  At the end of this talk, I handed out their Jedi Padawan Gear.

At their next station, each person received an Ewok.

I gathered "donations" of teddy bears from friends, from the Dollar Store, and from Good Will.  I popped them all in the wash (JUST to make sure no one was going home with unwanted guests of the insect variety).  Then I made each Ewok an Ewok headdress.  These look a lot harder to make than they were.  I bought some leather-looking fabric at JoAnn's.  Again, I cut the fabric into a rectangle, folded it in half length wise, slid the fabric on top of the bear's head, then put safety pins on either side to secure it in place.  I sewed up one side, securing the front of the headdress to the back, then sewed up the other side so that the headdress was quite tight against each bear's head.
 Then, with sharp scissors, I felt for the bear's nose, and cut a small circle around the bears eyes and nose.  Then, again feeling around, I cut a small slit for each ear, and pulled the ears out.  They turned out SO cute!!!

Then each Padawan Learner took their Ewok through the lands of Endor on an obstacle course.  This task was to help teach the Jedi Padawans the importance of caring for others and protecting them at all costs.  They got to take their Ewoks home with them at the end of the day.

After Ewok training, we refueled;  eating pizza, and having a little cake.

I went to Build A Bear and got a sound piece (the round white speaker in front).  When you pressed the button, the button would play the Star Wars theme song.  How cool is that? His cake played the Star Wars theme song!!!

I made him a Death Star Cake for his family party a few days later.

After refueling, the Jedis headed back to the workshop to build their own light sabers.  We went to Home Depot and picked up several PVC pipe ends and pieces, and each person built their own light saber.  For the saber part, I bought pool noodles and attached them to the ends of their PVC hand grips.  Sorry I didn't get a better picture.

Then, after a brief training on best light saber fighting techniques (and how to make proper light saber sound effects), the Jedi Knights took balloons and played with their light sabers for the rest of the party.

No one wanted to go home.  At one point, several of the parents ended up with their Jedi Padawan Learner's light sabers, and a second round of duels ensued.  What fun!!

Each kiddo took home their padawan braided hair clip, their Jedi Padawan Learner Vest & belt, their Ewok, and their homemade light saber as party gifts.

All in all, it was a fun little party!

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GranNini's Lemon Crinkle Cookies

GranNini's Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Each year I bake Christmas goodies for all the nice folks at my hubby's office.  Last year's holiday tray of yumminess is pictured below.  The lemon cookies are the 4th from the left.

I promised I would start uploading my recipes of this fabulous deliciousness, so here's the recipe I use for Lemon Crinkle Cookies.

I snagged this recipe off of pinterest several years ago -- can't find the original pin anywhere.  But fortunately I had gone old school, printed it off, and I tweeked the recipe a wee bit.  A very similar recipe can be found here:  Lemon Crinkle Cookie Recipe

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Makes 4 dozen wee little cookies.

If you want bigger, "normal sized" cookies, it'll make less.

Obviously.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter (unsalted), softened

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 teaspoons lemon extract

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon salt

¼ baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

3 cups flour

For the Top:

1 Cup powdered sugar, sifted

For the Sprinkles:

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 package (single serving) Crystal Lite lemonade crystals (do not add water)

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add in eggs, one at a time, vanilla, lemon extract, lemon juice, and salt.
2. Scrape down the sides of your mixing bowl.  Gently sprinkle in baking powder and soda and allow the mixer to blend those in.  Slowly add in flour.
3. Pour the mixture out onto saran wrap, form into a large ball, cover tightly, and place in the fridge for a few hours (or even overnight!)
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
5. Unwrap the dough, break off into small pieces (about the size of a quarter), and roll into wee tiny little balls.  If you want "normal sized" cookies, feel free to roll into larger sized balls.  Just remember then you'll need to bake them for another minute or two at the end.
6. Pour sifted powdered sugar into a small bowl.  Slowly pop a ball of cookie dough into the powdered sugar and roll it around.  Place the cookies back onto the parchment paper lined cookie trays.  Make sure you leave room between cookies, because these cookies spread a bit.
7. Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 9-10 minutes, or until they are no longer shiny.  But don't keep them in too long, or they will brown and become crispy rather than chewy and delicious.
8. Remove from oven, and cool for several minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
9. In a small bowl, mix together granulated sugar with the dry Crystal Light crystals.
10. With your fingers, gently, and very, very lightly, sprinkle a few crystals of Crystal Light lemonade / sugar mixture onto the top of each cookie for a wee bit of added zing.

One item to note, the cookies usually look much prettier than my pictures shows them to be.  This year's picture was done in a bit of a frantic hurry.  The recipe can be halved quite easily, but I have found that the lemon cookies are always a huge hit -- and are a wonderful, tasty alternative to the chocolate-heavy recipes with which I usually fill my trays.

Enjoy!

For those of you who like pictures with your instructions, here you go:

After you've made your dough, let it sit in the fridge for a couple hours, up to overnight.

Using a mini cookie scoop, spoon out balls o'dough.

 Mmmmm.  Balls of dough.  These haven't been rolled yet.  Obvs.

 A whole tray of cookie blobs.  Make sure you space them out a bit, as the cookies will spread.

 I rolled half the blobs so you could see the difference.
It's SO much easier to get consistently sized blobs if you use that magic cookie scoop thingie.
AND, then you don't get cookie dough under your fingernails.
Which is gross.

 All pretty!

I plop my blobs into a bowl of sifted powder sugar.  I put in three blobs at a time.  I roll them around with my fingers.  Then I use a fork to scoop them up, and I put them gently into my hand, and I shake my hand up and down a bit to let the loose powdered sugar to go back into the bowl.  Then I place them back on my parchment paper - lined cookie sheets.

Bake for 9 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.

With your fingers, gently sprinkle on a few sprinkles of the sugar / crystal light lemonade crystals onto each cookie.

Allow cookies to cool completely before serving.

Be sure to store in an air-tight container.

Mmmmm, tasty!

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Granini's Cinnamon Rolls

Granini's Cinnamon Rolls

Recipe

I use a basic Parker House Roll recipe as the base of my dough.

Dough

1 package yeast 

1/4 cup water, slightly warmer than room temperature

1 cup scalded milk

2 Tablespoons shortening (I use unsalted butter)

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 well beaten egg

3 1/4 cups flour

Filling

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine, softened

3/4 to 1 cup of brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 Tablespoons cinnamon

1 cup chopped pecans

1 cup raisins

Topping Part 1

Cooking Spray

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine, melted

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 Tablespoon cinnamon

Topping Part 2 (optional) (Cream Cheese Frosting)

1 cube (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/3 cup coconut milk (optional)

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup of cream (I use half and half) -- adding in slowly;  you may not need it all

Instructions

Dough

1. Scald the milk:  In a small saucepan, heat the milk until it simmers and starts to rise up the sides of the pan.  Take off the heat, add in the shortening, and allow to cool to room temperature.
2. Soften yeast in warm water.  
3. Combine milk, shortening, sugar, and salt.  
4. Add yeast and egg.  
5. Gradually stir in flour.  Beat vigorously.  Cover, and allow to double.
6. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and roll until approximately 1/4 an inch thick.

Filling

1. Spread softened butter across entire surface of the dough.
2. Sprinkle on cinnamon, sugar, and brown sugar.
3. Sprinkle on nuts and raisins.

Putting it together

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
2. Gently roll the dough along the long edge, to make one long tube.  Don't worry if any filling falls out.  You can simply pop the "Fallen Out Filling Goodies" onto the bottom of the baking dish before you add your rolls.
3. Slice into 2 inch pieces.  Feel free to cut the rolls into smaller 1 inch slices / chunks for smaller rolls.  We just love the jumbo mega sized rolls.  Set aside to prepare your dish.
4. In a 9x13 glass dish, gently spray with cooking spray.  
5. Topping 1:  Pour melted butter into the bottom of the glass dish, and jiggle the dish so that butter reaches all 4 corners of your dish.
6. Sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon on top of the melted butter.
7. Now's the time to scoop up any leftover flour / sugar / nuts / raisins that have fallen out of your cinnamon rolls while you were rolling them up, and add that goodness to the baking dish.
8. Place your cinnamon rolls on top of the melted butter / sugar.
9. Pop into the oven and bake for 35 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown.
10. Prepare optional Topping 2 (Cream Cheese Frosting).
11. Once the rolls are baked, remove from the oven.  

For Sticky Buns 

(cinnamon rolls without frosting)

Immediately flip each cinnamon roll over onto its tummy, revealing the cinnamon sugar coating goodness on the (now) top.  Mmmmm!  Serve while piping hot, but make sure to blow on each bite so you don't burn your tongue!

For Frosted Cinnamon Rolls 

Aka: Optional Topping 2: Cream Cheese frosting

So the kiddos and the hubster love having cream cheese frosting on the top of their cinnamon rolls.  I think it's a bit much, and prefer the rolls as sticky buns, but alas, I spoil them rotten.  

While your buns are baking, prepare the Cream Cheese frosting.

1. Place softened cream cheese into a standing mixer.  Mix for 30 seconds until smooth and creamy.
2. Add in powdered sugar, salt, and cinnamon and mix thoroughly.
3. Slowly add in your coconut milk and vanilla.
4. Slowly add in the cream.  You may not need all the cream.  Just add a little at a time until your frosting is the desired consistency.
5. So if you prefer the frosting on top of your rolls, once your buns have come out of the oven, do not flip them over (leave them with the sticky goodness on the bottom), and immediately spread on the frosting so that it melts.  Serve while piping hot!

For those of you who like pictures:

Pictures

Prepare your Parker House Roll Dough

Roll it out and spread on your softened butter

 Sprinkle on the brown sugar.  I never measure.  I just sprinkle on however much I need.

 Sprinkle on the white sugar.  Again, I don't measure. I just sprinkle on.

Sprinkle on the cinnamon.  I use a LOT.  But again, I don't measure.  

Sometimes I add in a dash (just a dash) of nutmeg as well.  Depends on my mood.

I like to bake my nuts for about 5 minutes in the oven before popping them on my dough to get them smelling all nice.  I also like chop up my nuts much finer than I did here.  I didn't do it here, so you could see how bigger chunks of nuts would limit the number of nuts in each roll.  Nuts are obviously a preference here.  Feel free to use hazelnuts, pecans, walnuts or skip the nuts altogether!  And you can also use golden raisins if you prefer.  Perhaps cranberry craisins would be a nice touch?  I've never tried.  Mmmm.... you could even add in a sprinkle of orange zest if you opt for the craisins!  Mmmmmm.  I should go try that now!

Roll it all up.

Nice long roll. 

 Chop into big chunks for mega rolls.  Smaller slices for "normal" sized rolls.  Some people like to roll out their dough really thinly, and then cut them REALLLLLLLY small so that the same amount of dough can be enjoyed by more people.  But I like my cinnamon rolls mega sized.  So I simply make more than one recipe if I have more than 8 people eating my rolls.  Yummo!!

Spray with cooking spray.  Add in melted butter.

Sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar.  Don't worry about mixing it together.  It'll take care of that itself while baking.  Notice the wee bits of flour and sugar on the left side -- that's the leftover yummy stuff from my cutting board.

My mega rolls all spaced out ready for the oven.  

Give your rolls a wee bit of room.  They will spread. 

I opted for a new tactic:  I prepared my dough the night before, and let my rolls sit in the fridge over night, and then allowed them to warm up to room temperature the next morning before baking.  I don't normally do this, but I wanted to see what would happen if I prepared them the night before so I could have an easier Christmas morning.  They rose a bit while sitting on the counter.  Normally I just pop them straight into the oven.  Seems like they worked out just fine letting them rest in the fridge over night! 

Golden brown and hot out of the oven.  

See the yummy golden caramel bubbling in there?  mmmmm!

 I immediately flipped them so that I could have caramel sticky buns.  When I'm doing just sticky buns, I tend to scoop more of the sticky goodness from the bottom of the pan, and schlop it on top of the caramel sticky buns.  Extra yumshusness.

But the hubster and kiddos wanted frosting.  So that's what they got!!!  

Mmmmmmm.  Cinnamon Rolls!!!

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I not only bake and cook, I write murder mysteries too!

Both books are available in paperback and kindle versions

Diamonds for Diamond 
(Book 1 in the Jack Diamond Mystery series)
and
No One Noticed

(Book 2 in the Jack Diamond Mystery Series)

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GranNini's Meatloaf

GranNini's Naked Meatloaf

One of the first meals I made for my hubby when we were dating a gajillion years ago was meatloaf.  He wanted nothing to do with the idea of eating meatloaf.  He feared it would be dry and tasteless.  I snorted, and told him he didn't have to eat it if he didn't want to, but that's what I was making.  And if he wanted to eat my homemade meal, he was welcome to do so. Otherwise he could fix something for himself.  An hour later, he was sniffing his way into my kitchen.  As I sliced off a piece of meatloaf, ladling on my ketchup sauce and plopping on a dollop of fluffy garlic mashed potatoes, he started drooling.  I smirked, handed him my beautiful plate of tasty deliciousness, and served up another.  After five minutes of yummy noises and an empty plate, he exclaimed in a somewhat incredulous voice, "But that wasn't dry and tasteless at all!  That was delicious!!"  I laughed.  

Of course it was delicious.  I made it.

So here's the recipe for my naked meatloaf.

Recipe

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 pound ground beef

1 onion, finely diced

1 red, yellow, or orange bell pepper (NOT green), finely diced

4 mushrooms, finely diced

1 egg, beaten

1/3 cup Italian bread crumbs

1/3 cup parmesan cheese

1 can Campbell's French Onion soup

Cooking Spray

Ketchup Sauce

1 cup ketchup

2 teaspoons Worcestershire Sauce

2 to 3 Tablespoons brown sugar (start out with 2 Tablespoons, taste for sweetness, and add more if you prefer a sweeter sauce.)

Meatloaf Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Sauté the onions, peppers, and mushrooms with the olive oil until they are nice and soft.
3. In a large bowl, add the ground beef, the sautéed vegetables, the beaten egg, the bread crumbs and the parmesan cheese.  Slowly stir in 1/2 the can of onion soup.  Mix all these ingredients together.
4. Lightly spray a large bread pan with cooking spray.  Slowly pour in the raw meat mixture into the bread pan, and then smooth down the top.
5. Carefully pour the last half of the can of onion soup onto the top of the meatloaf.
6. If you prefer to have your ketchup sauce baked on top of your meatloaf, spread your ketchup sauce on now, and then move on to step 7.  If you prefer your sauce on the side, skip this step.
7. Place in the oven and bake for 45 minutes, or until the meat is thoroughly cooked, and no pink is left.  Serve while piping hot.

Sauce Directions

Some people like to have their ketchup sauce poured directly on top of the meatloaf, and baked together.  In our house, we prefer them baked separately, with the ketchup served on the side.  If you prefer to have your sauce baked on top of your meatloaf, simply add your mixed, unbaked sauce onto your unbaked meatloaf before placing your meatloaf in the oven.  If you prefer your sauce on the side, pop your meatloaf in the oven, and then proceed to make your ketchup sauce.

1. As soon as you pop your meatloaf, start making your sauce.
2. In a small baking dish, mix all ingredients together.  Taste for sweetness, and add more brown sugar if you'd like your ketchup sauce to be a bit sweeter.
3. Bake in the oven until the meatloaf is finished.  Serve a scoop on the side (or on top!) of your meatloaf.  Enjoy!

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For those of you who like the pictures

 Sauté your veggies.

 Add your veggies to a large mixing bowl.

 Add in your dry ingredients, your meat, and your egg 

(I forgot to beat it first.  Oops!)

 Mix everything all together.

 Squish everything together into a lightly greased bread pan, and then smooth the top. 

Then drizzle on the last 1/2 of the can of French Onion Soup.  

Pop it in the 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.

Mmmmmmmm.  Meatloaf.  Mmmmmmmm.

For the sauce, this is what it looks like when it's mixed together, but unbaked.

 All done.  Tasty!!!

Naked Meatloaf.  It may not look fabulous, but it tastes SOOOOO yummy!

I serve my meatloaf with fluffy garlic mashed potatoes, sweet ketchup sauce on the side, and corn.  Just in case you were wondering. 

Enjoy!

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