Shindiglet: Battle of the Batter

Shindiglet - Like a grand shindig, only a much smaller to-do. There are times, when even a small group of people getting together creates an occasion for celebrating with a theme. And if it is within my power, I always try to make that happen.

An across-the-miles triple throwdown baking challenge, for me, is such an occasion.

Over the past few years, my bestie, Toni, and I have exchanged recipes. A couple of times we've even tried new recipes at the same time and compared notes. That was fun. But recently, Toni kicked it up a notch, posting a challenge on facebook... challenging me, and another gal, Toni-Lynn, to a baking THROWDOWN! What was the objective? Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes. None of us had made them before, but we all exuded confidence. Check out our game faces:

Toni

Tanya

Toni-Lynn

What followed was some bakers' smack talk. After a few days of that, we separately conducted our baking experiment, using different recipes, of our own choosing. As the three of us live in three different states, we couldn't actually judge the recipes side by side. We would have to be the judge of our own creations, with input from friends and family all-too-ready-and-willing to sample the end product. :)

Here's how it went down for me.

I started with just a few ingredients: 3 oz. bittersweet chocolate, 3 oz. milk chocolate, butter, cocoa, egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar.

I melted the chocolate and the butter together in a double boiler.

The egg whites were beaten together with the cream of tartar and sugar.

I folded the egg whites into the chocolate.

And then scooped the batter into the buttered and sugared muffin tins.

After about seven minutes, they came out of the oven like this:

They look good, don't they?!

Turned out onto a plate, aside a scoop of coconut ice cream, and dusted with cocoa powder, it looks like this:

Anticipating the molten chocolate that makes this dish "lava cake", I cut it open and mmmmmmm.........

Look how my youngest is eating it up!

OK, so I would love to just leave it at that and feel all proud of myself, but....

I kinda cheated.

I'll come clean.

My lava cakes ended up being not-so-molten. I'd describe them more like chocolate mousse cakes. Still completely delicious. And rich. And dangerous... because I couldn't stop eating after just one. Here's what it really looked like inside:

And my secret molten-ator?

Hey, living a stone's throw from Hershey, PA makes it all okay. :)

Be sure to check out Toni's and Toni's re-cap of this chocolate lava cake triple throwdown!

Shindiglet: Family Movie Night & Bedtime Moments

Shindiglet - Like a grand shindig, only a much smaller to-do. There are times, when even a small group of people getting together creates an occasion for celebrating with a theme. And if it is within my power, I always try to make that happen.

A family movie night, for me, is such an occasion.

On weekends, my little family unit (the four of us) likes to kick back and relax and enjoy some family entertainment on the ol' boob tube. Lately, we've been watching the Pink Panther cartoons that I remember watching as a kid. I'm loving the fact that my kids think they are hilarious! My memories take me back to when I was young and I went with my family to the drive in. Before the movie started, we would be treated with a cartoon, sort of like an appetizer. All of us kids (there were always so many of us in one car... never failed!) used to guess which cartoon would be shown. Would it be Tom & Jerry or The Pink Panther? And which exact one would it be? The beach episode of Tom & Jerry where Tom tries to impress that sleek white girl cat? The Pink Panther episode where PP wants everything painted pink when the man is obviously a fan of the color blue? The occasional Ant & the Aardvark? Ahhh, those summertime moments of anticipation! So fast-forward many... ahem!... a few years later, and I get to see my kids rehashing the simple plot lines that make the Pink Panther so timeless.

All of this reminiscing has gotten me all nostalgic. In my ritualistic, daily blog hopping earlier this summer I landed on a contest over at wantnot.net that focused on special bedtime moments between parents and children. I guess that sentimental mood back then got me thinking about special bedtime moments, and how our children just grow up so darn fast (second grade already!!). It hit me that these are the days my children will remember when they're my age, and hopefully they'll look fondly upon them. I want to give my kids those Pink Panther memories! I want them to drift off to sleep in a home where they have fun and bond over family time! Goshdarnit, I want tons and tons of special bedtime moments!

Did I mention that I won that contest over at wantnot.net? No? Welllllllllllllllllllllll... let me tell you all about it! Mir, the very pretty blogger over yonder had partnered with GoodNites to sponsor this contest. All I had to do to enter was to write about a special bedtime moment I had experienced. I recalled the bedtime story "Love You Forever" and how it always makes me emotional when I read it. You can get the details at wantnot.net and spare me the blubbering from rehashing it now. :) I cannot tell you how excited I was to learn that I had won! When the prize arrived in the mail, I was like a kid at Christmas, going through all of that loot! Included was a beautiful LL Bean tote bag, a nice, warm, fuzzy throw blanket, two Moleskine journals, a $50 gift card for Borders, and a $100 pajamagram.com gift certificate. Wowee!! Family movie night just got cozier! To top it all off, wantnot.net won a sub-contest with GoodNites as the blogger who generated the most entries to the GoodNites website's Special Bedtime Moments contest. With that win, Mir earned $1,000 worth of bedtime books that she had donated to her local county library system's outreach program. Having even the tiniest part of getting books into the hands of people who can appreciate them is just plain delightful.

To bring us back full circle, I'm currently planning a shindiglet for an upcoming family movie night. With a subtle nod to wantnot.net and GoodNites... I think we'll watch 'Bedtime Stories.'

Wordless Wednesday: Teacher Appreciation Luncheon Dessert

for other Wordless Wednesdays, click here and/or here

Shindiglet: The Before-the-Party Party

Shindiglet - Like a grand shindig, only a much smaller to-do. There are times, when even a small group of people getting together creates an occasion for celebrating with a theme. And if it is within my power, I always try to make that happen.

A before-the-party party, for me, is such an occasion.

I planned to make a lunch for the family members coming to the FairlyOdd Parents Bowling Party. During the lunch, we could open gifts from them instead of toting more stuff to the bowling alley. What started off as a light lunch, soon became a shindiglet!

Inspired by the Magical Tablescape post over at Party Planning Mom, I envisioned a fairy theme spin-off of the FairlyOdd Parents theme we'd be ensconced in later. My girls were turning seven and three, and pink and green fairies (nod to Wanda and Cosmo's colors) seemed to be the perfect focal point.

Since this was to be a smaller affair, with the main party following it, I wanted only to provide a few key decorative accents. We have a green woodland fairy that sits in our kitchen, so I snagged her to reign supreme as the table centerpiece. Some silk floral stems softened her up a bit. I found a few ceramic fairies at the Dollar Tree that surrounded the woodland fairy tucked in between the flowers and leaves. The green forest bed (a square of green felt) looked very pleasant atop a pink table covering. This picture was taken a few days before the party, as I was planning it all out.

Two shades of green crepe paper were draped from the chandelier to the corners of the room to give the effect of a luncheon under the shade of a big tree.

The table setting was very simple. Every enchanted forest has flowers, so we had a floral napkin with pink utensils. We used a floral napkin spread open as the placemat, a pink plate with a white doily on it, and had a tiny pink cup filled with pop rocks which, when later added to the pink lemonade, became fairy punch (although my girls couldn't wait, and drank the pop rocks straight up!). This great drink idea came from the Magic Tablescape post previously mentioned, as did the idea of putting cotton candy into the drink cups to munch on before the lunch was served. The girls loved it!

For lunch, I served cold cut sandwiches, cheese & crackers, fruit salad, deviled eggs, pretzels, and for dessert, birthday cake, of course!

We lit seven candles for the oldest child and sang Happy Birthday to her, then repeated the process with three candles for the youngest. We ended up not having enough time to open presents before the bowling party, so we waited until afterwards. What a great day spent with family & friends!

Shindiglet: Book Club discusses The Prince of Tides

Shindiglet - Like a grand shindig, only a much smaller to-do. There are times, when even a small group of people getting together creates an occasion for celebrating with a theme. And if it is within my power, I always try to make that happen.

A book club meeting, for me, is such an occasion.

Over the weekend, I had a Book Club meeting. The book was The Prince of Tides, by Pat Conroy. This story's setting is largely in Coastal South Carolina. The main character's family were shrimpers. I was in charge of bringing the food. And you know how I love a theme...

Being a morning book club meeting, my challenge was to find an appropriate breakfast or brunch food that would tie in to the book's setting. Shrimp was necessary, I immediately decided. My thoughts then quickly headed back to last summer's vacation to Charleston, SC. After a long, hot day strolling the streets of Charleston, my family settled in to a refreshing seafood dinner at a very colorful restaurant. Looking at the menu, I landed on three magical words: shrimp and grits. I had never had grits before. And the cheese-laden, bacon-y sauce sounded too good to pass up. This particular restaurant, shaped the grits into cakes and fried them to a golden crisp, and ladled the shrimp & sauce over top of that. It was totally mouth-watering. I, however, did not think I could pull this off at 8:00 on a Saturday morning, but grits sounded like the ideal pairing with shrimp and breakfast. So I did a search for shrimp and grits casserole recipes, and found one that sounded worth trying: Cheesy Shrimp-and-Grits Casserole.

Photo courtesy of joyd at RecipeZaar.

The night before Book Club, I hit the grocery store to get my supplies. I wandered around forEVER looking for grits. Having never bought them before, I really didn't know where they would be located. I first looked by the rice. Nope. Then the ethnic aisle (why not?). Not there either. Okay, grasping for straws, I searched by the flour and corn meal. Notta! I almost gave up on the idea and started thinking of other things to take to eat. I was completely deflated with that line of thinking, however. I really had wanted to work out this theme! With a lightning moment of inspiration, I headed to one last place to look for the grits - the cereal aisle! Lo and behold, there were the variety of grits nestled next to the oatmeal selection. Happy day! So I finished up my shopping list and headed home to get started.

I prepared the recipe that night, and needed only to pop it in the oven for about half an hour just prior to leaving for the meeting the next morning. Fortunately, we were only meeting across the street at my neighbor's house, so it was still nice and hot and ready to be gobbled up when I got there! I did bring along a fruit salad (strawberries, red grapes, and blueberries tossed in a honey-lemon dressing), to round it out, and as an option for anyone who doesn't like or can't eat shrimp. A jug of Southern Brewed Iced Tea fit in nicely with this fare, too! I was proud of the result, which was not too overwhelming, but helped set the mood for the topic of discussion. We all allowed ourselves to be immersed in the way of life described in the book, and we didn't escape without a few goes at a southern drawl in our voices.

Go to 5 minutes for mom to read more tackles!