{Recipe} Peppermint Meringues

During the holidays one of my favorite things to do is bake!  I love to make a large variety of cookies and freeze them so that I can throw together little platters at the last minute before we head to visit with our friends or family.

I was recently given a recipe for mint meringues and I really wanted to try them, but to be honest, I was a little nervous.  I've never made meringues before, and I figured they would be difficult, but they are actually quite simple and delicious!

I've now made this recipe three times, and everyone who has tasted them has really enjoyed them.  They are light and minty which makes them super refreshing.  Plus, they are made with egg whites, making them a bit healthier than most of the other cookies I have been whipping up around here.

Here are the very simple and concise directions on how to make these delicious treats!

Prep:  20 minutes

Bake:  90 minutes

Oven:  200°F

Ingredients

3 egg whites

¼ teaspoon cream of tartar

¼ teaspoon peppermint extract

⅛ teaspoon salt

¾ cup sugar

Directions

v  Preheat oven to 200°F.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper; set aside.

v  In a large mixing bowl, combine egg whites, cream of tartar, peppermint extract, and salt.  Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until soft peaks form (tips curl).  Gradually add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating on high speed until stiff peaks form (tips stand straight).

v  Carefully transfer meringue into pastry bag fitted with a ½ inch open star tip.  Pipe 2-inch stars 1 inch apart onto prepared cookie sheet.

v  Bake for 90 minutes or until meringues appear dry and are firm when lightly touched.

**For one of my batches, I mixed in some red food coloring when I was filling the pastry bag and attempted to do a little candy cane swirl.  To be honest, I wasn't thrilled with the way they turned out.  The color kept them looking a little bit wet, even after their time in the oven, but here is a quick pic for anyone who interested.**

Enjoy!  And if you make this recipe, let me know what you think!  Happy Holidays! :)

Why I LOVE Milliwik Cards...

(FYI - I'm cheating again.  I wrote this blog for ODIZ Baby Supply, but honestly, it's so relevant to so many of you, I wanted to post it again :) Oh, and I'm freaking exhausted!)

When you live in the North East, holiday gifts are even more important than you can imagine.  You see, after the New Year, you are pretty much guaranteed that you will have at least a dozen days when you will be stuck indoors, without the ability to leave for even five minutes, thanks to the snow gods. 

Yes, you can go outside.  If you have the energy to bundle everyone up, (20 minutes), only to be told that someone needs to use the bathroom (10 minute undress/redress), at which point you finally make it outside, when (5 minutes later) someone is cold and wants to go inside.  At this point, when you are sweating your butt off, and have created an entire load of laundry for five minutes of “play” you may be thinking never again. 

I reiterate, holiday gifts are of extreme importance.  They need to keep your children happy, and occupied, for more than 5 minutes ALL WINTER LONG!  Therefore, I put a lot of thought into my purchases.  Today, I got one of my fabulous purchases in the mail, and as I was about to put them in my closet, I decided that my kids needed this new toy.  Today!

I got the Milliwik Splashimals Floating Playing Cards, and they are amazing!  I threw the kids in their bathing suits (I knew I wanted to blog about these cards – and to be honest, it makes it a little more exciting for them!) and poured extra bubbles in the bath and told them that they had a “present!”  (Squeals prevailed at this point!)

P, my little man who is almost 4, was beyond excited.  He kept asking me “Can I get these wet??”  At this point he was already in the bath, so um, yeah…  His first instinct was to find the matches to create animals.  (There are 30 cards that form 30 common animals and many, many more unique ones).  I actually thought it was pretty great that he was doing that because the cards split the word in half and this is a great way to work on phonics with my pre-reader.

See… “ze – bra”  (FYI I found this image from another mom’s review of these cards…thanks Google!)

When I told him it would be really funny to put a monkey’s head on a turtle’s heiny, he just about lost it.  He was quite the comedian coming up with different combinations and sharing them.  Combining the octopus’ bottom with any head produced many “ewwwws”! 

We spent about an hour in the bathroom, and even Bean, at 18 months, could not get enough of these cards.  The fact that they “magically” stick to the wall was enough to keep her interest.  She would gather them all up and then place them all around, take them down, and repeat.

I seriously LOVE these cards.  They were so much fun and my kids got to spend an hour playing together, while learning and getting clean.  Does it get any better than that?!  Plus, the cards come in a mesh storage bag…perfect for drying out after you are done playing.  I am going to pack these for our upcoming trip to Aruba.  Sounds like fun in the kiddie pool!!

Milliwik has a few other varieties of cards and now I totally want to order more!  Check out these awesome sets.

These are super cool!  It’s a real standard set of cards!  I want a set of these to use at the beach next summer!  I don’t know why the tag says ages 2-11…it should say 2 – 111.  Who wouldn’t want to relax with friends in the hot tub, with a glass of wine, and a good card game!  (Am I aging myself??  Hey, when you have two kids following you around ALL the time, that is what a great night sounds like.)

Or these “Sum Bodies” floating cards.  (Hehe J )  I like these because they come in three parts, so you can really create some hilarious combinations. 

I kind of think the alien is cute with her little cupcake and ballet slippers. J

So anyway, weather you will be stuck inside all winter long or not, I give these cards an A+ on the present meter, and at only $11-$13, these are the perfect stocking stuffer or gift topper.   After you check them out, come back and leave comment with your thoughts.  Do you love them as much as I do??

We have a Winner!

Congrats to Christine Thomas who has won the Valco Baby Universal Cup Holder!

Christine - Please email stuffmomloves@gmail.com to arrange to receive your prize! :)

HAPPY MONDAY, ALL!! :)

I Did It!!

So, I actually went through with my plan to conquer my Pinterest projects, and surprisingly it didn't turn out as bad as I would have thought!

First, my felt tree.  Okay, so, this was not the world's best project, but also not an epic fail.  I managed to make the tree, get it hung up, and the kids loved it - for about 15 minutes.  Then Bean decided that it was much more fun to peel off the Command strips I used to hang it up.  So in that fifteen minutes I managed to get one blurry cell phone pic of it...

Now the tree is rolled up and siting in the closet until I can get more sticky strips to rehang it...oh well.  (A quick little word of advice - if you decide to do this project, which in total cost me $8 and I have a TON of felt left over - make sure you have a really good pair of scissors.  My pair was not cutting it!  I ended up literally using a pair of nail scissors because that is all that I could get to cut through the felt!)

Project 2 - the ribbon tree tee for Bean was much more successful!  I purchased 8 different designs of ribbon.  I bought about 12 - 18 inches of each, which ended up being more than I needed, and actually a little more costly than I thought it would be...about $14.  Not too bad, but I could have headed to the gap and got her a super cute tee for the same price! Ha!  Anyway, I bought the ribbon, and a package of Stitch Witchery.

(Super cheap - especially with a coupon!) 

I had intended to just fuse the ribbon straight to the tee, but I hadn't found a perfect shirt while I was out, or in the baby's closet, so I decided to create the tree on a piece of the leftover felt.  I'm really glad I did this because it kept the shape of the tree much better than if I had tried to do it free-hand on the shirt.

It was extremely easy to use the stitch withchery and I was really happy with the quality of the bonding.  My only problem was that if you get any of the web on the iron, or the front of the ribbon, it becomes sticky and it's a little noticeable...

You can tell that I got a little on the knot of the bow...I tried to clean it with a little warm water, and it helped, but it's still there.

So anyway, I finally found an adorable red shirt at Babies R Us, complete with a sequin and tulle bow detail, and it was perfect!  I fused my felt tree to it quickly and easily, and here is the finished product.

I think I'm ready for Project Runway! Hahaha!

In all seriousness, for my first attempt, I'm pleased.  I think I'm going to pair this with a black tulle skirt, some sparkly tights, and a pair of holiday Baby Legs.  My little Bean is going to be styling, as usual ;)

So there you have, another Pinterest inspired project!  I'm pretty excited about it, not gonna lie.  What have you tried from my fave website???  Please share!  I'm always looking for a fun new craft!





The Dangerous of Pinterest...

I am OBSESSED!  I can't stop checking pinterest.  It's a sickness.  The side effects include thinking I'm richer than I am, thinking my house is bigger than it is, and thinking that I am craftier than I could ever be.  Today's problem has to do with the craftiness, or lack there of.

Thanks to all of the adorable and quote "easy" crafts that you can find on pinterest, I am currently preparing my list for JoAnn Fabrics.  My goal today is to make not one, but two, holiday related crafts for my little monkeys.

Project 1:

This adorable felt Christmas tree is going to be my attempt to keep the kids off of the real one.  Probably not going to work, but hey, if nothing else, it will look cute on our glass sliders...

Project 2:



Not only am I going to attempt to make this precious shirt for my little Bean, but I'm also going to attempt to make a few for the other special little ladies in my life.  We shall see how this goes.  I promise to share the results even if they are disastrous!

Oh boy, I have so much more I want to share, but Bean is currently attempting to redecorate our real tree - off to intervene!  Happy Thursday all! :)

Christmas Crazies Have Begun!!

Oh my goodness!  It is that time of year when parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. all begin going CRAZY trying to find the perfect gifts for their loved ones.  I am guilty of it too.  I want my kids' faces to light up when they see that Santa really listened all year long and (hopefully!) got them their most requested toys!

The problems begin when there are millions of people who all want the SAME toy for their kids!  I will never understand it, but for some reason, the toy companies just don't produce enough of the "it" toys, and thus begin full blown wars over the few products that can be found.

This year, it appears that this little beauty is the toy causing people to push, punch, or pepper spray each other in the Walmart parking lot.

My kids are both getting these for xmas.  I bought my son's green one in August, and then in October, decided that my daughter needed one too, and was easily able to score a pink one.  Now, however, their $99.99 price tag has rocketed to more than double the price by people on ebay trying to make money on a little kid's wish list.  (Ugh!)

So, anyway, I have found a few tricks that should help you get a leappad if you so desire...I was able to help some friends and family with these websites.

Wiialerts.com is the site that I have personally had the most success with. 

If you leave this page open on your computer, it will actually ding and open up the site in your browser when the product you are looking for is in stock.  I have noticed that Amazon gets these leappads listed at least 2-3 times a day, and this is where I scored 2 this week.  Keeping the website up is the most important part of this.  Amazon does get the supply, but it literally sells out in minutes.  Usually 1 -2 minutes.  (Craziness!)

Another site that is very similar, and also works well is zoolert.com. 

Zoolert, (as well as Wiialerts) will email you or text you when the item you are looking for comes back in stock.  My daughter is (thankfully!) too young for these Lalaloopsy Dolls (which I keep thinking are called Lalapaloosy - sounds better, right? lol), but apparently these are a hot item too.  Wiialerts and Zoolert have you covered here as well.



Personally, I would pick online shopping over the malls any time of the year, but especially during the holidays.  If you are having trouble finding a certain something, check these sites out. 

FYI - I have absolutely nothing to gain from sharing these sites with you, except that maybe it will make your holidays a little bit easier.  I thought that sharing them might help some of you out, so I went with it.  :)  Hope you find them useful!!  

Valco Baby Universal Cup Holder {Review & Giveaway}

I have many jobs, but my first (and most important!) is as a stay at home mom to two beautiful babies.  During the holiday season, these sweet little things are usually found being dragged around the mall with me as I search for the million gifts I need (& want!) to buy. 

There are two things that keep me sane in the mall, in December, with my children – my double stroller and my cup of coffee.  Unfortunately, my stroller and I are NOT besties.  (FYI - I do not have a Valco Baby Stroller, unfortunately!) One reason for our differences, is its lack of a cup holder.  I have purchased many add-on cup holders, including the one made “specifically” for my stroller, and I hate them all!  My stroller and I both usually end up covered in coffee.  

Not.  Cool.

I have had my eye on a new stroller for some time now, but when Valco Baby very generously offered to send me a Universal Cup Holder to test out, I decided to hold off.  ValcoBaby has saved the day!

I am in LOVE with my new cup holder.  It is the first attachment that I have tried that not only holds almost any size cup, but it actually keeps it from spilling, and/or falling out!  Check this out…

It is super easy to install this cup holder, but to be honest, it did take me two tries to get it as tight as I wanted it.  (Trust me, this was 100% user-related malfunction.  I didn’t really read the instructions…)  Once it was on, it didn’t move, except when I pressed the button that made it swivel until I felt it was level.

You can see just how tight I was able to get it.  It is actually smooshing the foam on the handlebars, which is fine with me!  I wanted it to be that tight, because I am always afraid that my drink is going to tilt and spill and burn my babies. 

I tested the holder with all different types of cups, and it held each one securely.  Sometimes I have to lift my stroller to get the kids over curbs, or around crowded stores, and I am confident that I can do this without having to worry about my cup holder swinging back and forth.

Here are a few of the cups that I tested.  Luckily the holder has prongs on the inside that adjust to the size of your cup.  I was able to get everything from a small kid’s cup from a restaurant to my huge reusable mug into the cup holder and I still had room.

Being a suburban mom, my stroller is pretty much stored in my trunk.  I have had so many cup holders that as soon as I fold my stroller, pop right off.  It is extremely frustrating to be in a parking lot in 20 degree weather, trying to attach a cup holder.  I am happy to report that when I folded it, and threw the stroller into my trunk, the Valco Baby Universal Cup Holder stayed put and stayed straight!!  I didn’t even have to adjust it when I took it out of the trunk.   (Note:  As you can see from the pic below, the cup holder does protrude a little from the side of the stroller.  I have been careful not to lay the stroller down on that side.)

So, I am happy to report, that with 20 days left to shop for Christmas, I am able to keep my kids strapped in, AND have my coffee while navigating the insanity of the mall!  THANK YOU Valco Baby for making my life sooo much easier this holiday season!!

Oh, and guess what?!  Because they are so incredibly generous, they sent me, not one, but two cup holders!  Instead of putting one on each side of my stroller, like I really want to, I’m going to give one away to one of my fabulous readers!  Here’s the deal…

This giveaway will begin immediately following the publishing of this post.  It will end Friday, December 9^th, 2011 at 11:59pm, and the winner will be announced on Saturday, December 10^th, 2011.  To enter (up to 6 times) complete the following steps:

• ·        You must be a follower of this blog in order to enter.  If you are already a follower, leave a comment stating so.  If you are a new follower, leave a comment you sign up.  {1 entry}
• ·         Follow @caronjnp on Twitter for an additional entry.  Leave a comment below stating your Twitter name once you have done this.  {1 entry}
• ·         Like Valco Baby on Facebook.  Leave a comment here when you do.  {1 entry}
• ·         Follow @valcobaby on Twitter and you guessed it…leave a comment here. {1 entry}
• ·         Tweet about this giveaway with a link to this blog post, then leave a comment with a copy/paste of your tweet.  {1 entry}
• ·         Share this giveaway via Facebook with a link to this post and leave a comment here.  {1 entry}

Good luck and happy entering!

Disclosure:  I was not compensated for this review.  This post reflects MY opinions only.  Vaclo Baby provided the universal cup holder for review and for the giveaway.