“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!” party

I love Snoopy and Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang!  I remember looking forward to watching their specials on TV when we were young.  (I also love pumpkins) so it was easy to come up with the perfect theme for a fall birthday party for my son.  I haven’t watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!” for years, but I remember how Linus made me laugh, trying to wait all night in a pumpkin patch.  So this party started with a little pumpkin patch.  I had made some fondant pumpkins for cupcake toppers, and so there  were still some just sitting around, waiting to form a pumpkin patch for Linus.Add in a “great pumpkin” and some more chipboard Peanuts characters (from last year’s kids’ Thanksgiving table)…..I had found some little packets of tissues with Snoopy on them, so they were a bit of a favor at each place….There were some other cute and fairly easy pumpkin ideas that were fast enough to put together for this party.  My sister told me about using mandarin oranges as little pumpkins….Just peel them and add “stems” from celery, or in this case, stems from spinach leaves!  And a bit of cilantro for leaves around the pumpkins.  And then a jelly bean favor for each kid, this idea I found here on Parenting.com.  I happened to have some red tulle (no orange!), so wrapped the orange jelly beans in it, then added pipe cleaner for a stem (and to hold the bag together) and some green curled ribbon for the tendrils.  Didn’t take long to put together.The orange tablecloth and birthday banner I had saved from last year’s Garfield party…My preschool nephews were visiting, so I was trying to think of ideas that they could help out with for this party….baking!!  Let’s make some birthday brownies!! (from a box!!)You could always add a pumpkin puree swirl into the chocolate brownies, that would be finger lickin’ good!  (or pumpkin and cream cheese!! ahhhh!)  Another idea that turned out great to do with the little kids was to make a birthday poster.  First I drew a picture of Snoopy with a Sharpee marker on posterboard, then covered it up with white paper and painter’s tape.  Then let the kids at it with paint daubers (bingo dabbers?)A fun idea even the youngest can help with!After painting is dry, peel off the tape to reveal….Snoopy!Then an older kid colored the words in with black marker so they’d stand out a bit.  Posters, bday banner, favors, centerpiece, check!!….bring on the food and the party!

A happy pumpkin with a jack-o-lantern face from Papa Murphy’s pizza…..it’s the season for those, and they were just right for our pumpkin theme.  We love Papa Murphy’s pick up and bake at home pizzas!Time for pizza!Pumpkins! (oops, that’s from something else!)Linus’s pumpkin patch moves over to the birthday brownies….Make a wish….Happy birthday!  Check out some more pumpkin ideas…Here are some more pumpkin food ideas that I’ve worked on in the last few days, and they’d be perfect for a  Charlie Brown pumpkin theme.  My mom told me about some cute pumpkin cheese-balls that she saw, so I tried them out….How to: mix up softened cream cheese with spices (garlic, onion, paprika, pepper, season salt, or whatever you like) and some grated cheddar or mozzarella cheese.  I also added chopped sun dried tomatoes.  Let sit for a few moments in the refrigerator to harden a bit, then pull it out, divide into two chunks, cover with plastic wrap and shape into 2 balls.  On top of the plastic wrap, mark the lines on the pumpkin with a back of a knife.  Return to fridge.  Later, before serving, take off the plastic and roll the cheese-balls in crushed nacho cheese tortilla chips (Doritos!) and add the stems from some bell peppers.The stems were easy to cut out….cut out from the pepper, along with the seeds, then cut right at the base of the stem, it kind of just popped off….crushed Doritos…I added paprika, but don’t do that, it dulled the color….When you press in the stem, it helps squash it into a pumpkin shape…I took a knife and re-made some of the indentations on the sides….Such cute, tasty little guys!And one last pumpkin idea….we just loved this one!  I found a video on how to make these adorable pumpkin buns, by Hani, from Haniela’s.  She has all sorts of great how-to videos for lots of yummy eats!  She made these in just an hour.  My first time to try took close to an hour and a half, but the next time was faster….and really, 35 minutes of that time is letting the buns rise, so really they’re pretty quick to make!  And so adorably pumpkiny!!  (Click on the link above for her video and recipe! you can do it!)  You can make large ones for hamburger buns, how fun is that??Make the dough and cut….Let rise, add egg wash and sesame seeds, Bake for about 12 minutes…Add a stem and there you go!!  I didn’t have the big pretzel sticks, so used several small skinny ones.  I’ve also seen photos with pecans as stems!I just love those pumpkins!!  All pumpkins, I guess.  We had a lovely day out at a pumpkin (and everything else) farm and I had such a great time!  Love photographing pumpkins!Hope you got some ideas for your next fall party…oh, I just saw that It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown is on TV tonight….pumpkin memories!! 😉

Hello Kitty Fruit Salad Bowl

You just can’t get enough of that cute Kitty, I know!  So I thought I’d post just one more party food idea for your next Hello Kitty party.  This one turned out great and is super yummy, I promise!

One of our favorite “salads” is more like a dessert, I’m afraid.  It’s a marshmallow-fruit-whipped cream salad of yumminess…ahhhh.  Very easy, and it adapted itself perfectly to this Hello Kitty idea.  This food project needs to be made a day before your party.

Start out with a clean fishbowl.  You could call it a salad bowl, but it’s really a fishbowl…but ours has never even seen a fin.  (I bought it at Michael’s arts and crafts store).  I used one package of mini marshmallows for this recipe.  It’s not really a recipe, just kind of a throwing-together of ingredients.  I don’t think there’s really anything that you could do to mess this one up!

First whip up some whipping cream…the real stuff!!  (with a bit of sugar and vanilla, nice and thickly whipped)  Like maybe about  two cups.  (Or more!)  In a very large separate bowl, mix about half a bag of mini marshmallows and about half of the whipped cream.  It should be a thick mixture, not runny at all.  Now with a big spoon, start spooning this into the fishbowl, and coating the sides of the bowl, like this…This is so that Hello Kitty will have a nice smooth-looking face, instead of  grape “beauty marks or warts” on her face!  Coating the sides of the bowl with the marshmallow/whipped cream mixture is quite easy.  Try to make it as thin as possible, so you have some more mallow for the salad!

Now to finish the salad: mix up the rest of the marshmallows with the whipped cream.  There’s a healthy short cut you can do here.  I added in plain greek yoghurt and/or plain vanilla yogurt instead of some of the whipped cream.  It works great….really, I think this salad could be made with only yogurt and no cream and it would be just great!  But I don’t think cutting out the marshmallows is an option!

Now cut up and de-seed some grapes.  A big bunch of grapes.  We like using the red grapes.  Make sure each grape is cut at least in half!  Add these to the mix in the big bowl.  Add some mandarin orange segments (maybe a can-ful or two).  (I didn’t have any, but you can add a can of pineapple chunks, too).  You kind of add what you have on hand, fruit wise.  Now it’s a fruity marshmallowy salad.  To give it a nice nutty crunch, add some toasted almonds now (might be a good idea to have these toasted before you start making the salad).

Almonds:  to peel whole almonds, put them in a bowl and pour boiling water over them.  Let sit for a few minutes, then start popping the skins off them…that’s the fun part that kids usually like helping with!  After they are all peeled, toast them in an oven or in a skillet on top of the stove….just a warm toasty brown, don’t let them burn!!  When they are cool, add them to the salad.

That’s about it for the fruit salad!  Mix it all gently together and spoon it into the fishbowl.  It made just enough to almost fill it. Now cover and refrigerate it.  The next day, right before the party, you can add the face and bow.  The bow was made from a paper napkin/serviette.  Cut a strip off one side, gather the large rectangle up, then use the strip to fasten around the middle and tape together.  Use a small piece of tape to stick it to one side of the bowl.

For the face:  melt a couple of cocoa candy melts (I use Wilton’s), or a few spoonfuls of chocolate chips.  Put into a plastic baggie and snip a tiny piece of the corner off so you can pipe the chocolate out there.  The fruit bowl is nice and cold so the chocolate will set up quickly.  Pipe the whiskers on first, then the eyes and nose….I think the eyes should have been down a bit….oh well, it took just a minute to do right before the party started.  If you mess up, you can just scrape it off and start again.  I found that the chocolate stayed on perfectly for a long time….the only problem was that the kids wanted to pick it off and eat it!!

Right before eating time at the party, you can gently mix the salad up, or even just mix it up as you serve it…so that there is fruit throughout the whole salad.  Mmmm, love this salad!!  And the Kitty, too!  I was especially pleased that this was my very own little idea…I didn’t “find it on Pinterest” like most of my ideas, haha!!

Quesadilla Dogs!!

Have you ever eaten a Quesadilla Dog??  I’m guessing that you haven’t, since I’m pretty sure that my Mom invented this delicacy!!  Well, I suppose if you’ve attended Eston College, then maybe you have, since I introduced them when I worked there…. 🙂 but I don’t know if they are still serving them….not the healthiest thing on the menu!  (but I think they are super yummy and worth a blog post!)

For those times when you feel like having a hot dog but don’t want all that soggy bun….or when you’d like a quesadilla, but a little more substantial….it’s the Quesadilla Dog!!

Super easy to make for a quick lunch (supper, snack or breakfast!!)  I think that if you like hot dogs or smokies, you’ll enjoy this twist:

Quesadilla Dogs

everything you need:

hot dogs or smokies

tortillas (flour or corn & flour blend)

grated cheese (mozzarella or cheddar)

jalapeños (optional!)

toothpicks

ketchup and/or salsa!  (optional!)

skillet or frying pan  (oil is optional)

What to do:

First heat up the smokies/hot dogs however you like.  To do this quickly, I usually throw them into the microwave (after pricking them) on a plate with a bit of water and heat them like that.  The yummiest way would be to fry them up!! Haha!  Or you could boil them or grill them….or use leftover bbqed smokies!!  Anyways, heat them up a bit.  Oh, and start heating up your skillet or frying pan now, too….

Get out the tortillas.  We usually use those whole wheat, whole grain ones with all the little flax bits in them, like this…just because…but this last time we tried the flour and corn blend ones and they were very tasty!  Now get out the grated cheese!!  (we always use mozzarella, just because)…Lay the first tortilla out and add the hot dog and sprinkle it with cheese:Now add some pickled jalapeños if you like them!!  Go for it!Roll up the tortilla and fix it in place with a toothpick (this is one of the corn & flour tortillas)Set that little baby into the hot skillet….I don’t use oil or anything, I just brown them on all sides in a dry skillet.  Of course they are super delicious fried up in oil!!!  (At Eston College we used to quickly fry them up in the deep fryer!! ahhh!)  But, you know, I try and not fry too much just because…blah blah blah…..When they are toasty on all sides, serve them up!!!  Either pull out all the toothpicks, or remind everyone to NOT BITE down on one!!  Serve with choice #1 Ketchup, choice #2 Salsa or choice #3 Sour cream and Salsa!!  🙂  Everything tastes yummy!  (Oh booy, I get soo hungry when I post about  my favorite foods!)

Let me know what you think if you try this out at your house 🙂