Fruit Salad With Honey-Yogurt Sauce

This was another dish that I made for my brunch themed supper club.  As easy as fruit salad is to make it's a bit time-consuming with all of the peeling, chopping, etc. Plus, you have to eat it pretty quickly or it gets kind of mushy.  I loved the honey-yogurt sauce on top of the fruit.  It was slightly sweet and citrusy which complimented the fruit nicely.  It was nice to have something light on the table with the egg casserole, hash browns, muffins, etc.! My kids lucked out because there was some leftover fruit salad which they gobbled up!  I'm linking this recipe up to This Weeks Cravings at Moms Crazy Cooking blog. 

Fruit Salad with Honey-Yogurt Sauce
from Cooking Light, November 2004

Ingredients:
1 cup vanilla low-fat yogurt
1 tablespoon honey
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lime rind
3 cups cubed pineapple (about 1 medium)
1 1/2 cups chopped Braeburn apple (about 1 large)
1 cup orange sections (about 2 oranges)
1 cup chopped peeled kiwi (about 2 large)
1/3 cup flaked sweetened coconut
1 medium banana, sliced
1/4 cup slivered almonds, toasted

Preparation:
Combine yogurt, honey, and lime rind in a small bowl.

Combine pineapple and next 4 ingredients (through coconut) in a large bowl; toss gently to combine. Just before serving, stir in banana. Top fruit mixture with yogurt sauce; sprinkle with almonds.

Family Rating: 2 thumbs up!

Children's Book Review: What Will Fat Cat Sit On?

What Will Fat Cat Sit On?
Written and illustrated by:  Jan Thomas
Published by:  Harcourt Inc., 2007

from goodreads.com:
What will Fat Cat sit on? The pig? (Oink!) The chicken? (Cluck!) How about the dog? (Grrrr.)

Everyone in this bumbling animal gang (understandably) hopes the victim will be someone else! Leave it to Mouse to come up with a brilliant solution that satisfies everyone, even Fat Cat himself. Filled with hilarious asides and an interactive question-answer format, this irreverent young picture book will delight toddlers who love to shout "NO!"

* Jan Thomas is becoming one of our new favorite picture book authors.  We've recently read some of her other books Rhyming Dust Bunnies and Is Everyone Ready for Fun? among others.  What I like is the simplicity of the books.  The illustrations are super simple, but are set on colorful pages with large text.  The text is repetitive and simple enough that my 3 1/2 year old son who has just started reading can read it to us.  In this book we are trying to find out What Will Fat Cat Sit On?  Mouse comes up with a great (yet obvious) idea but then it's time for lunch.  My son and I were both huge fans of this book, while my daughter was "a little weird."

Family Rating: 1 1/2 thumbs up (since my daughter didn't love it as much as the rest of us!).

Children's Book Review: Diggy Dan: A Room Cleaning Adventure

Diggy Dan:  A  Room-cleaning Adventure
Written and illustrated by:  Daniel and David Kamish
Published by: Random House, 2001

from goodreads.com:
Timber! Diggy Dan, the sloppy man, has to dig his way out of the mess he calls a bedroom. Mounds of toys, garbage, and clothes cover every inch of his room. Such a mess can be tamed by no ordinary little boy. But when he becomes Caveman Dan, the Prehistoric Man; Rocket Dan, the Outer Space Man; or Cowboy Dan, the Outlaw Man; he is able to take care of dirty walls, offending garbage, and grimy laundry in a snap. Children will love this playful adventure of high imagination and messy rooms.

* As I mentioned in a previous post I'm on a quest to get my kids to keep their rooms clean.  I thought that some bibliotherapy might help!  So I've been putting lots of children's room-cleaning books on hold at the library!  Diggy Dan is written and illustrated by a father and 9 year-old son team which I thought was very cool.  In this book Dan's mother makes him stay in on a Saturday to clean up his room.  As he starts cleaning he is no longer Dan but an Archaeology Man, a Caveman, and a Pirate Man among other characters, as he gets him room in order. With the types of toys in Dan's room my son could relate more to this story than my daughter could.  No big changes in room-cleaning behavior yet.....reading on......

Family Rating: 1 thumb up.

Mimosa Muffins

I am happy that I can be joining This Week's Cravings over at Moms Crazy Cooking again.  It's been awhile, since I don't always make a recipe that goes with the "Craving of the Week."  Last month's supper club theme though was brunch.  So over the next few days I will post and link up the recipes that my husband and I made.  Normally, the couple hosting that month's supper club will make the protein/main dish and then everyone else is free to pick whatever they want to make to go with it - appetizer, side, salad, dessert, etc.  Several years ago we had done a brunch theme, so to add to this month's challenge, we didn't want to make anything that was made at that supper club so very long ago.  Seeing what everyone else was making I thought a muffin would be nice.  As my husband says, muffins are just an excuse to eat cake for breakfast!  These muffins looked different and with the champagne definitely said "adult."  We ate these pretty soon after they came out of the oven.  They were so fluffy from all the baking powder!  The orange flavor was much more pronounced than the champagne, so we even let the kids try some of the leftovers.  I recommend eating the first day!  The leftovers lost some of the moistness over the course of the next few days.

Mimosa Muffins
recipe from Inspired by Charm which was actually a guest post from No. 2 Pencil

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups of all-pupose flour
1/2 cup of sugar
4 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt
zest of two large oranges - 1 teaspoon reserved for glaze
1 cup of champagne (sparkling wine)
1 stick of melted butter
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

For the glaze:
1 cup of powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons of freshly squeezed orange juice
1 teaspoon of orange zest

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add zest from two oranges and whisk into dry ingredients. Don't forget to reserve a teaspoon of zest for the glaze. In a separate smaller bowl, combine melted butter, champagne, eggs and vanilla and stir together. Then add wet mixture to dry ingredients and stir, just until combined.
Divide batter evenly among the cupcake pan, and bake for about 18 minutes, or until light golden brown.

Remove muffins from oven, and prepare glaze while they begin to cool. Spoon glaze over muffins while they are still warm, not hot. If the muffins are very hot, the glaze will run off too quickly.

Mommy & Daddy Rating: 2 thumbs up!

Pepperoni Pizza Grilled Cheese

I am excited to be participating in Tina from Moms Crazy Cooking May Crazy Cooking Challenge.  I've been having so much fun participating these last few months!  This month's challenge was grilled cheese.  Cheese and bread seem simple enough.  But there were soooo many delicious looking grilled cheese sandwich recipes out there that it was so hard to choose just one!  This is definitely one of her challenges that I will be going back to and making recipes that the other participants posted!  Grilled cheese is such a quick and easy meal and the variations are endless!  After looking at lots of different sandwiches I finally settled on this Pepperoni Pizza Grilled Cheese.  Becase we love pizza and grilled cheese so combining the two had to be good, right?!  Definitely right!  The compound butter crisped up on the bread giving it a tasty, flavorful crunch!  Plus you had the gooey mozzeralla cheese with the pepperoni and olives.....yum!  Unfortunately, my daughter doesn't like mozzerlla cheese when it's not on pizza.  So, she ended up scraping the cheese off eating a toasted pepperoni sandwich.  My son gobbled his sandwich up (it's a winner!).  I could have totally eaten another one of these sandwiches, but controlled myself after just one!

Pepperoni Pizza Grilled Cheese
from Never Enough Thyme...when Lana's Cooking

Ingredients:
For the compound butter:
4 tblsp. softened butter
2-3 tblsp. grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. dried oregano
dash of salt

For the sandwiches:
Bread of your choice
Prepared pizza sauce
Sliced or grated mozzarella cheese
Sliced black olives
Thinly sliced pepperoni

Directions:
Combine all ingredients for the compound butter in a small bowl. Stir until thoroughly combined.

Assemble the sandwiches: For each sandwich, spread a small amount of pizza sauce on the surface of two slices of bread. On the bottom slice, add the mozzarella cheese, black olives, and pepperoni. Top with second slice of bread.

Spread the top of the assembled sandwiches with a generous amount of compound butter. Place the sandwiches, buttered side down in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook until bread is nicely grilled. While the first side is grilling, butter the second side of the sandwich. Turn sandwiches over and cook until the second side is toasted.

Place skillet with sandwiches in preheated oven for 5-6 minutes or until the cheese is melted.Remove from oven and serve immediately.
 
Family Rating: 1 1/2 thumbs up!
 

Children's Book Review: Basil's Birds

Basil's Birds
Written and illustrated by:  Lynn Rowe Reed
Published by: Marshall Cavendish Children, 2010

from amazon.com:
Uh-oh! Some birds start building a nest on Perch Elementary's flagpole. Then above the school's doorway and even in the eaves spout! Finally, they find the perfect spot-the bald head of Basil Berkmeister, the school's custodian! Should Basil get rid of his new hairdo. . . or adopt them as if they're his own children? The birds do come to think of him as their father... and even give him a surprise on Father's Day. Silly mixed-media llustrations complement this one-of-a-kind story.

 
* I honestly don't know what to think about this book.  Some birds end up building a nest on the custodian's bald head.  He feels bad for them and ends up keeping the nest there and taking care of them.  When the birds end up having babies he feels like a father-like figure to them.  Definitely kind of weird?!!
 
Family Rating:  So-so.

Banana Nutella Bread

I've made several different variations of banana bread and muffins.  But when I found this recipe that used Nutella, I had to try it!  We love Nutella in our house.  The kids like it spread on a bagel for breakfast.  As much as I could eat the stuff straight from the jar I'm always on the lookout for different ways to cook and bake with it.  This bread was easy to make but needs an hour to bake.  It was moist but the Nutella was gooey (so make sure to have plenty of napkins on hand!).  This was a nice breakfast treat for us!

Banana Nutella Bread
from Mostly Food and Crafts

Ingredient:
3 small ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup low fat sour cream
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1/2 cup Nutella

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; beat at medium speed of an electric mixer until well blended. Combine flour and next 3 ingredients; Add flour mixture to banana mixture, stirring just until moistened.

Spoon 1/2 batter into a loaf pan coated with baking spray. Drop in 1/4 cup Nutella in dollops. Swirl a bit then top again with remaining batter. Add the rest of the Nutella in dollops on top. Swirl again.

Bake for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Family Rating: 2 thumbs up!