Pumpkin Coffee Cake

 

Ingredients: 

Streusel Topping: 

1/4 cup melted butter

2/3 cup flour

3 Tbsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Cake: 

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup oil

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt (or sour cream)

1 cup can pumpkin

Optional Glaze:

1 Tbsp milk

2/3 cup powdered sugar

Mix the flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the oil, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, yogurt, and pumpkin. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix with a spatula. 

Pour into a greased 8x8 inch pan. In a small bowl, combine the streusel ingredients, mixing with a fork. 

Put the streusel on top of the cake and bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes, or until the middle is set. 

You can top with the optional glaze if you would like. We ate it without the glaze, but that would be a nice addition. 

Air Fryer Potato Wedges

 

Ingredients: 

5-6 Russet potatoes cut into wedges

3 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp parsley

1 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp pepper

Put the potatoes in a large bowl. Add the olive oil, chili powder, paprika, parsley, sea salt, and pepper. 

Stir until the potatoes are evenly coated.

Put half of the wedges in a 400 degree preheated air fryer for 10 minutes. Shake them after 10 minutes. Cook for another 4 minutes. Repeat with the second batch. 

Pumpkin Bread

This is such a delicious pumpkin bread: it was gone within an hour. 

Ingredients: 

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/4 tsp nutmeg

2/3 cup sugar

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup milk

3 egg whites

1 cup canned pumpkin

Combine the flour, soda, powder, salt, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and nutmeg in a bowl. 

In a separate bowl, whisk the sugar, brown sugar, milk, and egg whites together. Add in the pumpkin. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Stir until just combined. Pour into a greased bread pan. Bake at 350 for about 55 minutes. 

Let the bread cool on a wire rack after taking it out of the oven. 

 

Mulan Dinner, Movie, and Craft Night

 For our family movie night featuring Mulan, we decided to add dinner and a craft to fit the theme. 

I made a quick Mongolian Beef Noodle dish, cut up some meat and cheese to practice our chopstick skills, cut up Swiss Cake Rolls and Strawberry Cake Rolls, dipped some fortune cookies in chocolate, and had mandarin oranges. 

We also made paper fans out of two pieces of 12x12 cardstock. Rachel drew a design on the fan, we folded it accordion style and hot glued it together with two popsicle sticks on the end. 

Mongolian Beef Noodles with Ground Beef

 Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
3 tsp ginger
6 cloves of garlic

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup beef broth
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup hoisin sauce
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
pepper

1 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 1/8 cup water
1 14 oz package of lo-mein noodles (or spaghetti) 

Boil water and cook your noodles while preparing the sauce. 

Brown the hamburger in a pan. Drain the grease. Add the ginger and garlic.

Add the soy sauce, brown sugar, beef broth, hoisin sauce, red pepper flakes, and pepper to a separate bowl. Whisk until combined. Add the sauce to the meat. Mix the cornstarch hand water in a cup. Add to the pan and let the mixture simmer while the noodles finish cooking. 

Add the noodles to the sauce, Stir and simmer for about a minute. 

Cherry Dump Cake

 

Ingredients: 

2 cans cherry pie filling

1 tsp vanilla 

1 yellow cake mix

1 stick melted butter

Grease a 9x13 inch pan. Pour the cherry in the pan. Sprinkle the vanilla over the cherries and lightly stir with a spatula. 

Pour the cake mix on top of the cherries. 

Pour the melted butter over the top of the cake mix. Bake at 350 for about 50 minutes. 

This is really good with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

The One and Only Ivan Movie/Book Party

The kids and I read The One and Only Ivan this summer as one of our read alouds. We were so excited to see that the movie was going to stream on Disney Plus, so we knew we had to have a little celebration for its release. 

I put together some activity kits and dropped them off to some other kids that we knew had read the book and were excited to see the movie (a little virtual book club). 

There were two STEM challenges in the kits, a blank puzzle, a gorilla mask to color, and some yogurt raisins. 

The first STEM challenge was to build an animal cage that could hold the most weights using 5 straws, 1 piece of cardboard, and playdough or clay.

The second one was to build a free-standing billboard using popsicle sticks, straws, tape/glue, and one sheet of white cardstock. 

I ordered a set of blank puzzles for the kids to create their own Home picture like Ivan did in the book. 

I printed a gorilla mask template for the kids to color and attach to a wooden dowel. We also did some finger painting too. 

We made some edible "me-balls": No bake cookies. http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2017/04/no-bake-cookies.html

We also made french fries and strawberry shakes (Ivan's favorite foods from his childhood days with Mack). We also had popcorn, mangoes, and mini marshmallows (this is what the zoo keeper used to lure Ivan into the cage to take him to the zoo). 

After the party we started reading The One and Only Bob. 

Blueberry Bread

 Ingredients: 

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 cup Greek yogurt

2 eggs

1 stick butter, melted

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup old fashioned oats

1 cup blueberries

Start by mixing the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk the yogurt, eggs, and vanilla. Add in the melted butter. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Fold in the oatmeal and then the blueberries. 

Put into a greased bread pan and bake for 45 minutes at 375 degrees. Remove from the pan and let cool on a wire rack. 

S'mores Milkshake

We put together a milkshake for National S'mores Day. It was absolutely delicious! 

Ingredients: 

12 jet-puffed marshmallows

2 Tbsp milk

5-6 scoops of vanilla ice cream

10-12 chocolate melting discs or 1/2 cup chocolate chips

crushed graham crackers

Place the marshmallows on a baking pan lined with tinfoil. Broil on high for about 1 1/2 minutes until the tops of the marshmallows are toasted. 

Put the marshmallows (leaving two aside) inside the blender with the milk and ice cream. Melt the chocolate discs in the microwave for about 45 seconds, or until melted. Dip the top of the glasses into the melted chocolate. Then dip the chocolate in the crushed graham crackers. Pour the marshmallow ice cream in the glasses, top with the remaining 2 marshmallows and drizzle the remaining chocolate and crushed graham cracker on top. 

Virtual Minecraft Birthday Party

 Rachel wanted to have a small birthday party this year, but because of the pandemic, we thought it was a better idea to do a virtual party instead of a traditional party. It worked out really well. We gathered supplies for crafts, put together treat bags, and bagged up some cake and did a porch drop-off the night before her birthday. On the day of the party, we did a Zoom call and had the kids do the crafts together on the call; they sang Happy Birthday, ate cake and other treats, and did a Scavenger Hunt. 

Rachel has been doing a lot of building on Minecraft, so that was the theme she picked. It worked out really well because I could make individual block cakes for the porch drop-off. In the party packs we also included some water blocks (Jello) and sand blocks (Rice Krispie treats).  

The cake was made from brownies, Jello, Rice Krispie treats, and chocolate cake.

I put a variety of crafts into the party bags that we dropped off. We did a Creeper mask, a Creeper painting, and a torch. For the mask, I cut a piece of black posterboard into 8x8 inch squares and cut out two 1 inch square blocks for eyes. I hot glued a stick to the posterboard. I gave the kids enough 1 inch squares to fill the 8x8 inch area following a template I found online. I also took a mini canvas and divided it into 64 squares. I included Sharpies and oil pastel crayons so they could choose how they wanted to fill in their canvas. The Sharpies worked the best. For the torch, I just printed a template that I found online and added a tealight so they could put the light inside the torch. 

The bags also had slime bars (Jello), gold (Hershey nuggets), diamonds (Hershey kisses), TNT (licorice), potion of healing (Kool-aid drinks), and some Minecraft blocks that had jewels hidden inside. 

I made some treasure blocks out of 3/4 cups flour,1/4 cup salt, 1/2 cups used coffee grounds, 1/4 cup water, and 1/8 cup cornmeal. I put a small jewel on the inside of this dough. I baked them for 45 minutes at 175 degrees. 

I used these as the base to each Scavenger Hunt clue. I found 5 clues on Pinterest and printed them out. 

For another hunt, I made Minecraft boxes, taped inventory items on the boxes, and hid them around the house. The kids matched up all of their inventory to make sure they found all of the items. 

The Nether Portal was a huge hit! 

The other decorations and inventory items that I had out for snacking were a fun addition too. Most of these things were in the party bags too.