Category — Holidays

Here’s a guest post from June, my colleague at Kids Out and About. She occasionally (and it’s very occasionally lately–ahem!) writes a blog called My Name is June. I Like to Cook. She also wrote the post about making pancakes. Thanks, June!

Do you order pizza on Halloween to scarf down while you pass out chocolate to the trick or treaters? Really? Lame. Really lame. If you plan ahead a little, you can make this stew in advance and then just pop it into the pumpkin at the last minute. You still have two weeks to plan and cook it, because since you’re a good parent like me, you have abdicated all responsibility for the young ‘un’s costumes to the young ‘uns. It’s good for them. Makes them use their little noggins to come up with something original using only duct tape and the leftover tulle from their sister’s wedding. Can you say “Mummy”?

So, while the little ones thrash about desperately trying to complete their costumes before sundown on Halloween, pop this fun stew into the oven and you can pull it out just as the first little monsters show up at your door and demand protection money in the form of chocolate. And let’s not even get into those of you who are too cheap to spring for anything better than a mini tootsie roll. Puhleeze. It’s once a year. But then, who am I to judge? We live so far off the beaten path that I have never had a trick or treater darken my door. I have to go sit on a friend’s porch, but not before we eat the traditional Halloween pumpkin stew. Grandma Foodie used to make it every year when I was a kid. But I’ll bring a pumpkin roll and a bottle of wine with me to my friend’s house, so she’ll be happy to see me. I might even bring her a bowl of pumpkin stew.

Pumpkin Stew

3 T vegetable oil
3 cloves minced garlic
2 chopped green peppers
2 chopped onions
2 lbs beef stew meat
2 chopped tomatoes
1 T sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 pkgs frozen corn
3 diced potatoes
3 smallish sweet potatoes, diced
2 C beef bouillon
8 peach halves
1 medium pumpkin (if you can find  a pretty large pie pumpkin, they are sweeter and not stringy)
3 T butter
11/2 tsp salt

In a large dutch oven, brown garlic, peppers, onions, and stew meat in oil. Add tomatoes and salt. Simmer 20 minutes. Add corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, bouillon, and peaches and simmer 40 minutes.

Brush inside of pumpkin with butter and sprinkle with salt. Add stew and put lid on and bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees or until pumpkin is tender.

I think that this concludes the festive string of posts celebrating J’s birthday. This yummy pumpkin cheeseball could work for a grown-up party, too. We got the idea for it from the Southern Living Kids Cookbook, but J wanted to go with our much-loved family recipe for cheeseball. And then I decided that if there was a chance in hell that any kid besides J would eat any of it, I’d have to simplify. So I cut out all the veggies and about half of the spices.

The thing about cheeseball is that you just have to give in and use your hands. ut once you just surrender to the process, it becomes like creating a work of art. J wanted no part of “touching the ickiness.” But I had fun.

First, I sculpted the main shape, with ridges for the pumpkin.

Cheeseball shaped

Then I cut a little rectangular stencil shape and shook on some paprika.

Shaking on Paprika

The stem and leaves are from broccoli. This part, J was willing to do.

J puts on finishing touches

We served it with apple wedges, crackers, and pretzels. The kids admired it, but they didn’t eat much. I mean, come on: it was competing with popcorn balls. So, yeah. I finished it off.

Besides freeze dancing and general running and squealing, we planned two activities for J’s party. Once again, they were both all J’s idea.

First, she came up with Pin the Spider on the Web. We had a witch hat planned to assist in the blindfolding process, but it didn’t really happen. And each spider was labeled with a guest’s name. We had a huge web decoration stretched out onto the wall, and the little spiders had painters tape to stick them onto the web.

They looked cute all ready on a platter. The silver was tarnished which, I reasoned, just made it all seem more Halloweeny.

Here’s J moments before M accused her of cheating. Hmmm. . . .

We saved Bobbing for Apples for last in case people got wet. I expected that some of the girls would be anti-bobbing. I mean, it wasn’t too long ago that many of these kids were afraid to put their faces into the water at the pool. But they were unbelievably enthusiastic. We had J’s and M’s robes on hand to try to keep the girls as dry as possible, but those girls decided to go deep. I mean, seriously deep. And when they’d come up, apple trapped in teeth, they were triumphant.

I guess there’s a reason why Bobbing for Apples is a classic.

J picked out Snack-o’-Lanterns from Family Fun magazine as one of her many Halloween treats. I was skeptical: they looked tough. So I made a test orange jack-o-lantern. Turns out, it wasn’t too bad:

Of course, the whole point is to get the kids involved, so I took a deep breath and handed each of them a paring knife. Generally speaking, I’m in favor of giving kids knives. They tend to be much more careful with them than grown-ups, anyway. Still, it was nerve-wracking.

Careful, honey!

You cut off the top, pull out most of the insides, and cut a face. Then we popped them into the fridge for later. For the party, we filled them with fruit salad.

M loved making these. They were her favorite of all the Halloween treats. J liked it, but she’d get frustrated, too, and so she’d take breaks between o’-lanterns. If I’m honest, I have to admit that she was partly frustrated by me stressing out and saying, “Watch the knife! Keep your fingers higher on the handle! These are sharp!” Once she even said ouch and I freaked completely, but it was just because orange juice had squirted into her eye. Phew!

Anyway, the oranges were cute, and the kids loved them!

Hey! I keep expecting hotels to let me use their Wifi for free, and I’m consistently disappointed. So I’m writing this one up quick at a Starbucks in NYC. Luckily I’d already collected photos. Here are a few more Halloween treats that J planned for her party.

First, some popcorn balls from our Southern Living Kids Cookbook. Basically, it was your standard popcorn balls, to make it more festive, the cookbook suggests chocolate Teddy Grahams and candy corn. Yummy. These were marshmallow-y, so they were sticky and messy. For another sticky, messy option, you could go with caramel (here’s a recipe I’ve shared before).

Because I’m insane, I managed to leave this job ’til one of the last things before the party started. About 12 minutes before start time, all four of us had marshmallow hands, and my mother phoned us. She got the machine. Two minutes later we had, maybe 3 clean hands between all of us and the doorbell rang with our first guest. Phew! But they’re cute, right?

Of course we had the punch bowl, but J had an idea to make the lemonade more Halloween-y.

That’s right! We dyed it green with some food coloring!

And finally, we went with chocolate cupcakes and chocolate frosting with spider webs. This turned out to be our easiest treat-just make circles with white decorator frosting and drag toothpicks from the center out. They loved doing this, and it was yummier than those crazy eyeballs. There are recipe variations of like this all over the place.

One of the items J wanted for her party was the Forked Eyeballs that she saw in Family Fun magazine. Basically, they’re donut holes dipped in white chocolate and decorated to look like creepy eyeballs. I ended up scheduling them for the bring-to-school treat instead.

Of all the things that we made, J thought that these were the most fun to do.

The recipe says to use white chocolate chips and a double boiler, but I went with the almond bark-style stuff and melted in the microwave. For us, it was a bit goopy. Someone who commented on the site (linked above) tried frosting. I don’t know: I found it a little bit stressful. We also used Dunkin’ Donuts and found that the plain glazed held together better than the chocolates for this project.

Since this was clearly not going to be a gourmet venture, I took what I thought would be the easy way out and bought some instant red icing.

I didn’t notice that you were supposed to buy the tip separately. Well, that’s irritating. I was bitter, but luckily I still had that super-cool decorating kit I mentioned before, so I transferred the frosting. The recipe also suggested cutting the chocolate chips, which would have been a pain in the neck and a complete waste of time. Again, if you check the comments on the recipe, someone posted cute ones with M&M pupils as well. I didn’t go that crafty.

M lost interest after a couple of eyeballs, but J enjoyed helping through the whole process. Ours came out a little bit messier than the glossy magazine examples, but the good thing about Halloween craftiness is that MESSY=SPOOKY.

I hope everyone’s enjoying Mother’s Day weekend. Mostly I’ve been puttering today, which is excellent. One project was to move some of the houseplants outside for the season and give them a little maintenance at the same time. Most of them manage to survive in an atmosphere of benign neglect. For example, here’s a plant that I finally got around to re-potting:

Whoops.

Anyway, I am feeling exceptionally fortunate this Mother’s Day. Last night I was out with friends, some of whom have little, still-wake-you-up-all-night kids, and we were laughing, hard, about how awful it can be when you’re sleep-deprived. Honestly, I’m glad to be done with that stage, and part of me wishes that my overwhelmed and pathetic new-mama self could have had a sneak peek at these daughters who are so funny and smart, and (the biggest and best surprise) who love each other so much.

They’ve been giggling and secretive, and today J asked, “Mommy, I’m just wondering, do you spell Mommy M-O-M-M-Y?”  This is the first year that both girls know how to write, and and I’m looking forward to excellent cards. I am hoping that J doesn’t keep asking how to spell everything, because that nutty phonetic spelling is just as charming as the baby talk that they’ve mostly left behind. I’ve also already reminded the family that I don’t want breakfast in bed, thank you. I’d prefer to sleep through breakfast if possible.

For your Mother’s Day pleasure, I have a link that I’ve been saving for months, to Steve McCurry’s beautiful photography blog. Seeing these pictures only makes me feel more fortunate. For those who are new to Capital District Fun who might have a little extra leisure time, you might enjoy last year’s Mother’s Day Weep-Fest Triple Threat.

I will probably post my weekly post as usual on Sunday night, but if I feel like being lazy, it might be late. Don’t worry: there’s usually not much going on on Mondays, anyway.

Enjoy the day!

See this bunny? She’s approximately the size of a three-year-old.  My 20-year-old boyfriend, Cute W, carried her through the airport to greet me when I returned to college from spring break with my family. My children have offered me many adorable moments, but for adorable-with-a-side-of-swoon, it’s difficult to beat a blondie with goo-goo eyes and an enormous pink bunny.

Ahem! Where was I? Oh, yes. Here’s what I found for Easter festivities. Please add any others that you hear about in the comments.

Saturday, April 9th

• At Goold Orchard, there’s breakfast with the Easter Bunny from 9 am to noon.  You’re supposed to call for reservations.  $8/adult, $5/kids 5 to 11.  This is on Sunday, too.

Sunday, April 10th

• From 8:30 am until noon, have Breakfast with the Easter Bunny. It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet, and admission is $7/adult, $4 kids 6-10, 5 and under free. Proceeds to go to local charities. For the life of me I can’t remember where this is, and I couldn’t figure it out. Have I mentioned that I’ve been sick? If you know what this event is, please tell me so that I can update it.
• Schauber Stables in Ballston Lake has a free Easter Egg Hunt, with different shifts depending on the participant’s age. A few eggs will contain a free pony ride or riding lesson.
• At Goold Orchard, there’s breakfast with the Easter Bunny from 9 am to noon.  You’re supposed to call for reservations.  $8/adult, $5/kids 5 to 11.  This was on Saturday, too.

Friday, April 15th

• Tumbling Tykes in Latham is having an Easter Party from 3:30-4:15 pm for children under 2, and4:30-5:45 pm and 6:15-7:30 pm for all ages. Easter Bunny, activities, and a snack. $10/non-member.

Saturday, April 16th:

• The Crossings has an Easter Egg Hunt with Mr. & Mrs. Bunny  from 10 am to noon. The Easter Egg Hunt starts promptly at 10 am, and folks who’ve gone say the eggs disappear quickly. Crafts and snacks, too.
• At 10 am, the Annual City of Cohoes Easter Egg Hunt will be held at George Street Park.  The Easter Bunny will be there for photo ops.
• Faddegon’s Nursery has an Easter Egg Hunt from 10 am to 3 pm.  This event isn’t listed on the website, but I called to check in.
• B95 has their Annual Easter Egg Hunt at  Clifton Park Center.  Easter egg hunts run from 11 am to 1 pm, divided by age group, with plenty of other activities as well. A friend who’s been to lots of area events says it’s well-run and one of her favorites.
• From 12-3 pm, Sloppy Kisses in Saratoga Springs will have Easter pictures and a Canine Easter Egg Hunt.
• The Malta Community Center is having an Eggstravaganza Egg Hunt from 10-11 am today, but pre-registration is required (it can be done online) by April 8th. It’s $6/resident, $7/non-resident.

Sunday, April 17th

• Sloppy Kisses will have  a special doggy celebration from 11 am to 2 pm at Clifton Park Center.
• Faddegon’s Nursery has an Open House from 11 am to 4 pm.  There are door prizes, refreshments, and the Easter Bunny.  A friend who tries to go every year says that it’s great and very low-key, and it’s terrific for pictures because of all of the beautiful flowers. This event isn’t listed on the website, but I called to check in.
• The Helderberg Kiwanis Maple Festival runs at the Knox Fire House from 11 am to 3 pm. $8/adult, $5/kids 6-12, kids 5 and under are free. Pancakes, Easter egg hunt at 2 pm, pony rides, and more.
• Jonesville Fire Department (Clifton Park) is holding their annual Easter party from 12:30 to 2 pm. Easter Bunny, light refreshments, and fire truck rides.
• The Saratoga Jaycees are sponsoring an Hop Out Hunger Easter Egg Hunt from 2-4 pm.  Please bring non-perishable food or monetary donation for the local food bank.

Wednesday, April 20th

• At Ten Broeck Mansion, they’ll be making Tie-Dyed Easter Eggs. It’s billed as a family-friendly workshop, although young kids will need help. It’s $10/person, and pre-paid reservations are due by the 18th.

Friday, April 22nd

• In Niskayuna, they’ll have their Easter “Parade” on Friday, April 2nd, at 10 am at the Town Hall.

Saturday, April 23rd

• The Twin Bridges Rotary will have a Breakfast with the Easter Bunny including three hunts, photo ops, and other activities.  It’s from 8:30 am to noon at the Elks Club on McElroy Road, and it’s $6/adult, $3/kids 6-12, kids 5 and under free.
• Joyful Jumpers has a free community Easter Egg Hunt from 10:30-noon.  Please call Cindy to pre-register at 396-7885 by April 16th.
• Afrim’s in Colonie and The Children’s Guide will have an Easter Egg Hunt from 12-2 pm.  $3/child.

The Times Union Your Day Blog has more Easter events, too.

Last year, Cute W came home with Thinkfun’s Chocolate Fix as a Valentine’s Day gift for the girls.

W is always looking for super-strategic games and puzzles, and they are received with varying degrees of enthusiasm. This one went over quite well. First, it’s cute. That scores points with my kids. There’s a booklet with 40 different puzzles, and you’re supposed to follow the clues to arrange the nine “chocolates” in a specific way. It says that it’s recommended for ages 8 and up, but J could do the easiest puzzles last year at age 5 (and I don’t believe that she’s a prodigy). The toughest ones are challenging for grown-ups. It was a nice alternative to even more chocolate.

Thinkfun makes tons of educational games and puzzles. Sometimes they cross the line, I think, and get a little bit too educational. But my kids could not stop playing Zingo. Which is basically Bingo with very short words. It’s one of those games that you play with the kids once or twice and you think, “This is a great game! The kids love it!” And then you play six more times and think, “Okay, it’s getting a little bit tedious, but it’s so educational, and the kids really enjoy it.” And then you play four more times and think, “Holy crap, I would rather jump out a window [Mike Berbligia-style] than play another game of this! Oh, why oh why did I appreciate my life more back when I was childless and I could spend my Saturday afternoons  eating ice cream while reading a magazine?”

Speaking of games, we’re still big fans of Sleeping Queens, by the way. But Chocolate Fix is a great idea for Valentine’s Day. I’m pretty sure that he got it at The Toymaker at Stuyvesant Plaza, although I don’t know if they have it around this year.

As you may remember, I recently hosted what I call the annual Crafty Girls party.  I started doing this party a few years ago because I liked the idea of getting the girls excited for holiday stuff beyond the presents on Christmas morning and because I like slightly-too-ambitious craft projects. We do it after school, and some kids come straight home with us while others show up a bit later.

Many of the entertaining elements are the same year after year. There’s the obligatory punch bowl. I got this at a garage sale and it might be the best $3 I’ve ever spent. I highly recommend acquiring one if you’re a parent of daughters. The first year I served real punch, but it was too exotic for the youngsters, so now I just serve pink lemonade with frozen raspberries thrown in to make it extra fancy. This year I had a brainstorm and put wine charms on the punch cups, which was festive and functional. 

Then there’s a big platter of vegetables. This is the only food that’s always available, but–oh yes–pigs in a blanket, mini-pizzas, cheetos, and cookies are also served.

But the food isn’t the main event. It’s all about the craft. In past years we’ve decorated gingerbread houses, decorated mini-trees, and made ornaments.  This year, I took a commenter’s advice and went with Snow Globes. This can be a simple craft, and if you Google it up, you’ll see lots of directions using jars and florist clay to make a nice little snow globe. That would have worked great, I’ll bet.

But once again, I was too ambitious. See, I like to do a really nice craft. And so when I saw that National Artcraft sold real, snow-globey snow globes, and that they were cheaper by the dozen, I thought it was a terrific idea. I’d have enough for the girls, plus extras for each set of grandparents, possibly even my neighbor Mary and teachers, depending on my RSVP rate. Of course, the problem is that I had unwittingly taken my craft from the good-enough, cute-for-a-little-kid level and raised it to something that was more fabulous but also labor-intensive. So that, days before the party, I was freaking out over my serious craft problems .

Here’s why. I started off with the idea that I’d follow basic directions like these or these, which would have had me cleaning out a jar, sticking some figurines onto the lid with clay, screwing the lid on, and sealing it with hot glue gun. No problem-o. Or so I thought.

First, Cute W told me that the hot glue gun just wouldn’t work. It’s not flexible when it’s dry, so it would end up cracking and leaking. He came home with silicone sealant, which requires a caulk gun, a big metal apparatus designed to intimidate people who are not handy. Seriously: I’m still congratulating myself over getting over my fear of the glue gun. I managed to avoid handling the equipment almost completely by delegating this job to my ever-helpful friend C. But not before busting a pair of scissors trying to get the sealant tube open.

The next problem was the florist clay, which I was suspicious about from the start, because doesn’t it seem like those figures would fall out if kids are shaking them to get snow to fall?  It turned out that the clay absolutely wouldn’t work for my project because instead of a rigid jar lid, the National Art Craft people provide have given me a much more appropriate and professional flexible rubber stopper. So when I tried to put the stopper on a globe, the whole thing clay-and-figurine thing tumbled into a heap, like this:

Now, that’s discouraging enough. But having such delicate globes meant that I had to be extraordinarily careful about releasing the air as I placed the stopper into the globe so that the water and air pressure together wouldn’t break the glass. Apparently I was only ordinarily careful.

It’s difficult to tell in the picture, but one little penguin flipper went right through the glass. So that water, mixed with greasy silicone, glitter, & small shards of glass, spilled all over my living room table as my daughters looked on in horror and I cursed myself for doing this craft in particular and the stupid party in the first place. It was challenging putting the lids on, and my plan was to put together eight of them while children were flinging themselves around my house.

Do you see, here, that I’m crazy? That it’s better for me to spend too much time writing a blog because at least it prevents me from wreaking more havoc around the house?

Anyway, we gave up on doing the complete craft. Instead, we had the guests choose figures and place them in silicone the way they liked them:

The silicone didn’t just work better than the clay: it also looked more like real snow. Incidentally, the figures are all from Oriental Trading Company. They’re ornaments, but you can just rip off the hooks and you have cute little water-resistant figures. We set those aside.

Then we had the kids just choose their glitter and put them into the globes, which I kept in their styrofoam cases so that nothing would break.

After everyone went home, we let the figures dry for 24 hours, then set up an assembly line to add water and seal them. Which we were doing on Thursday night, the night before Christmas Eve. Like a couple of idiots. Or, really, like one chick who’s an idiot and one unbelievably helpful and accommodating husband.

After my penguin-flipper-bust-out fiasco, I was afraid to do the actual assembly, so I left it to Cute W. He had to gradually and carefully easy the rubber stopper on, letting excess water spill as he went.

On Christmas Eve morning, we used more silicone sealant to attach the globes to their wooden bases. And then we delivered them to our guests who were still in town. I was never so relieved to get rid of a craft. Except that when my friend C was unexpectedly out, I left it on her porch. And then arrived home and Cute W was like, umm, it’s going to freeze and burst. Oh, yeah. It’s a good thing he’s around. I jumped back into the car.

Here he is after a shake-up:

Anyway, I wouldn’t recommend this project for a group party, but the results sure were cute if you wanted to make a gift for someone. I bet that those ornaments are on sale at Oriental Trading right now, too. Some of our glitter appears to float no matter what, which hadn’t occurred to me. So if you wanted to try, do a “float test” with your glitter, or try egg shells as one of the linked directions above suggests.

The girls were happy with the craft, and we supplemented with felt ornaments and fairies, since I had supplies for those. I still aspire to get snow globes made for each set of grandparents, but I need a chance to gather some steam before I can think of facing the project again. Right now I’m still trying to catch up on my post-trip laundry.