Faux Eggs and Bacon Snack

This snack is STICKY.  But awesome.  And I sent it to school, so it wasn't like I had to deal with all the messy preschoolers.

For two "fried eggs" melt about 12 marshmallows and 1 tsp. of butter on medium-low heat.  (You can multiple this by however many finished snacks you'll need.)

Pour the melted goo into two globs on some HEAVILY GREASED tin foil (I suggest greasing with butter or butter flavored spray, because it will pick up a little of the flavor).  And smear the globs into egg shapes.

Take a couple of dried apricots, smoosh the centers with your thumb so they look like bubbled yolks and stick them to the centers of your marshmallow globs.

Let them cool before you take them off the tin foil.

(I found this idea here, where it has a few more details, you know, if you like details.)

For the bacon I bought some raspberry flavored fruit roll ups and cut them into bacon shaped strips.  Then, when I placed them on the plates, I made them look wavy, like cooked bacon tends to look.  (I think it would have looked better with thicker fruit leather, but I couldn't find bacon colored fruit leather.)

I wonder if the preschool teacher was mad that I sent highly sugared food glue to class?  Because I think I'm making this one again.

Snacks celebrating the number 100

We took this snack to school on the 100the day of school, but it would be great anytime you want to highlight the number 100 in a yummy and fun way.  Our snacks were: 100 Skittles, 100 green grapes, 100 purple grapes and 100 curly herb breadsticks (recipe found here).

I had the glass containers just hanging around, but I had to make the big box -it's one of those massive goldfish cracker boxes with the top cut off.  I just covered the outside in scrapbook paper.  It was amazingly easy and the kids thought it was fab.


Then I cut out the number 100 on some matching scrapbook paper and taped it to some bamboo skewers to put in the containers of snacks.

I love when snacks are easy and fun and can be passed off as a lesson about numbers.

Creepy Crawly Cookie Fail

Have you seen the cookies that some people have made that look like fossils?  They're super cute, and the concept seemed pretty easy, so I wanted to make some of our own.

Except that I was also feeling very lazy.

So I went to the grocery store and bought some premade, preformed sugar cookie dough.  And then I rounded up all of our creepy crawly plastic toys (bugs, frogs, dinosaurs, whatever) and washed them.

Then, seeing as I was feeling very VERY lazy, I put ALL the cookies on one cookie sheet.  Because baking two pans of cookies was just too much effort.  (quit judging, I spent my extra time letting my kids bury me in stuffed animals while I napped, so it was total quality time.)

Then I let my little monkey help me squish our plastic creepy crawly toys into the tops of the cookies.  And yes, he has a tattoo on his face.  And his arm.  We were feeling patriotic.

Things were looking SUPER FABULOUS.  Because I thought, "This is so easy!" and also "I'm tired, I think I'll take a nap".

So we baked the cookies.  Would you like to see our awesome end results?  Here you go:

TOTAL FAILURE!

So here are some tips so that you can get it right:
1- Don't be lazy.
2- Make your own dough, something that won't rise and expand so much.
3- Use really small toys to make the impressions (I thought ours were small enough, but it would have been better to get a whole spider impression then just a part, you know?)
4- Don't be lazy.

Miraculously I saved myself from cookie humiliation by making the most delicious cream cheese frosting I've ever made in my life, and we ate the cookies anyway.

Snacks: Rainbow Cupcakes

I have seen these cupcakes around and I thought I would, for sure, mess them up if I tried making them.  But they were actually really super easy.

Prepare a white cake mix according to the instructions on the box.

Separate the mixture into 6 bowls, and die each of those bowls a different color.  Make sure you have these colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.

Line a muffin pan with baking cups (I used four leaf clover ones).

Pour the mixture into the cups in this order: purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red.  I suggest pouring one color in all the cups before moving on to the next color.  Also, you should probably smooth out each layer a little with a spoon before you pour the next layer.

Bake the cupcakes according to your cake mix directions.

They may look funky on the tops, but the insides are FAB-O.

I was going to send these to school in a big pot with the cupcakes on top of a pile of gold wrapped chocolate coins.  But I couldn't find chocolate coins in any of the stores near me (although, why?  I don't know) and I didn't have a leprechaun-y enough pot.  But the IDEA is awesome.  And I give you permission to use it.

Snowman Toast Snack

A lot of the time my kids are like, "Mom, why do we always eat the same exact junk for lunch everyday?"  And most of the time I just say, "Eat it or starve, it's up to you," but sometimes (rarely) I'm just awesome and instead of giving them different junk, I just make it LOOK different.

To make:

Grab a piece of bread, and some cheese, and some raisins, and a couple crackers and a carrot stick.

Place orange-y cheese on the bread.  Then take some string cheese and separate it into strips.  You'll need to place those strips in the middle of the bread in a snowman formation (head, middle, body).  Don't worry about making perfect circles, because I doubt your kids will care.

Melt the cheese by placing the bread on a cookie sheet in a hot oven (or a toaster oven).

Place a couple of raisins on the middle of your snowman for buttons.

Break your crackers so that you have a "brim" and a hat.  (I used wheat thins.) And put it on your snowman's head.

With a small knife or a grater or peeler, make a tiny nose out of a carrot and set it on the snowman's face.

I served this with carrots, because they seemed snowman-y.  Also I made hot chocolate because, like I said, I was being awesome that day.

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