Marshmallow People

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The other day I prepped some Marshmallow people for a Sunday School class and as they were a huge success with the older kids I thought I'd try them out at home with our boys for a bit of 'no bake' cooking.

Easter No Bake Kids Cooking

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I like cooking with the kids, but my favourite type of cooking with them doesn't involve the oven or hob as our kitchen is small and the boys are into everything so no bake cooking is always far less stressful for me!  I came across the idea for these Easter chicks at Living Locurto and thought I'd make them a nest to go in.  Here's what I did....

Things to do with spaghetti and kids

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So next up in our series of posts on 'Things to do with...' is spaghetti!  These are all easy to do activities for you and your kids with stuff you'll likely have around the house.  First up......

1 - Spaghetti Structures

The original idea for this came from Pinterest, but the link was spam and so I don't know the original source (apologies), but the idea is that you get dried spaghetti and playdough and make 3D structures from it.  This is how I set it up for Champ, he was not impressed and the results turned out much more like......

2 - Spaghetti and playdough creations

This was something we got up to last year and yep, you've guessed it it's spaghetti in playdough you can check out the post here

3 - Cooked Spaghetti Sensory Play

This is a great activity as it's cooked spaghetti it's completely edible and so baby friendly.  There's heaps of similar posts around, but if you're looking for something different try this flavoured version from The Imagination Tree or this coloured version from Creatively Blooming.

I gave the boys tongs and pots and a few small lids that I hid under the spaghetti.

It soon got messy, they pulled off their socks and wriggled their toes in it, then poured it on their heads.  I stopped things soon after as they were starting to descend into chaos, but it didn't take long to tidy as it was all on a tarpaulin. 

And yes, they did eat it too!

4 - Threading on spaghetti

The idea for this is based on threading Cheerios onto a strand of dried spaghetti like the ones I found on Sugar and Spice, but when I went to the cupboard I realised we'd run out of Cheerios!  So instead we threaded rainbow puffs onto dried spaghetti.  This was tricky so Hubby made holes in the puffs first.

5 - Spaghetti Painting

Possibly my favourite post of 2012 and also possibly one of the messiest!  The boys loved spaghetti painting and I did too!  You can read how we painted with spaghetti here.

6 - Spaghetti and Sausages

Now I don't normally encourage the boys to play with their food, but this was great fun.  I found this on Plum Pudding, it's super simple, you get hot dogs (we used mini ones) and you thread the spaghetti through it.

Even Little Dude gave this a go, whilst Bud made some crazy creations!

And, the boys enjoyed tucking in!

I hope you enjoyed this post!  If you liked this you might like to check out some of our other Things to do with..... How about foil, wrapping paper, pumpkin, pinecones, plastic bags, chestnuts, more chestnuts, acorns, more acorns, carrots and odd socks.

Come back soon and make sure you don't miss a thing by subscribing or checking us out on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and of course Pinterest.

Truffles - Easy no bake kids recipe

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I cook with the boys quite regularly, but don't often post about it.  Two reasons - how often do you really want to see my kids make cupcakes?  And, normally when cooking with little ones photos are very far from my mind!  But, this recipe is so kid friendly and so easy I thought it was worth sharing!

A friend shared this recipe with me after doing it with lots of kids at a camp, but I also found a similar recipe on Best Recipes.

First you crush 250g of biscuits (we used digestives).  I gave half a packet to each boys, put it in a zip lock and let them bash away with a rolling pin.

Then when the biscuits are like breadcrumbs I stirred in a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder.  Then you pour in a tin of sweetened condensed milk (395g) and mix.  

The original recipe also mixed in desiccated coconut I skipped this as the boys don't really like it, but it does mean its worth adding a little less condensed milk than the whole tin else the truffles will be too sticky.

Then take a heaped teaspoonful of the mixture roll it into a ball then roll in more cocoa powder.  The cocoa was a bit too bitter for the boys so next time I'd swap this for icing sugar.

Here's the finished product, I put them into mini cake cases and cooled them in the fridge.  The boys who normally happily stick their hands in mud and goo found the mixture too messy and I ended up making most of the truffles!

But, they happily ate them!

I hope you enjoyed this post, make sure you don't miss another by subscribing or checking us out on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and of course Pinterest.

Christmas Cookies

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Spoiler alert!  Spoiler alert!  If you are female and related to me do not read on or you might find out what you're getting for Christmas!  Anybody else?  Welcome!

 

This week on Counting down to Christmas it's Christmas recipes - yum!  This may be my favourite week!  If you've done any cooking for Christmas feel free to link up below!

 

 

 

For some members of my family I will be giving them a jar with all the ingredients for these cookies from Bakerella.  The idea being they can bake them themselves adding just a few more ingredients (egg, vanilla extract and butter).  But, of course I couldn't give away a cookie recipe that I hadn't tried could I - noooooo!  So the boys and I had a trial run!

 

First, we put all the ingredients into the jar I planned to use for the gift.  The recipe is in cups as opposed to the British way of cooking in grams, which did make it nice and easy for the boys.

 

Notice the abundance of flour - everywhere!

 

The recipe also contains pecan nuts which the boys chopped using dinner knives.

 

All done to discover the jar was twice the size we needed - argh!  But, that's why we test these things out right?

 

Obviously testing the jar size was not enough we needed to actually taste these things!  So whilst Bud had lost interest my personal sous-chef (Champ) helped me add the wet ingredients and mix.

 

Then we rolled them into balls.

 

Cooked them and ate so many they were gone in 24hrs!  Opps!  They were delicious! 

 

Admittedly there's not really anything Christmassy except that they are FULL of very decadent ingredients - lots of chocolate and I added fudge bits instead of chocolate chips - mmmmmmm!

 

If you fancy making these I can whole heartily recommend the recipe from Bakerella.

 

And, so to the blog hop.  Don't forget to check out my co-hosts:

 

Rainy Day Mum and The Boy and Me

 

And you can add your other Christmassy links to the previous weeks:

Week One: Advent

Week Two: Christmas Cards

Week Three:Tree Decorations

Week Four:Homemade Gifts

Week Five: Nativity

 

Come back next week to link up your home decorations.