Dinosaur Themed Food for a Dinosaur Birthday Party

Rowdy is now 18 months old.  Can you believe it?  I am still playing catch up when it comes to blog posts because, well, I'm home full time with an 18 month old.  It is hard to find the time to set down and write when Rowdy wants to sit in my lap, read books, or open and close Lego suitcases for 30 minutes straight.  In the Fall Rowdy will start preschool with Lucky so I should have some time to dedicate to writing and filming again.  Nevertheless, I'm happy to finally share some of the fun Dinosaur themed foods I created for Rowdy's first birthday party.

Fossil Cookies

I thought it would be fun to take sugar cookies up a notch and make some fossil cookies.  After a lot of experimentation, I settled on the following technique:

1. Make sugar cookie dough according to the package directions for shaped cookies (or use your favorite recipe from scratch)
2. Roll the dough out
3. Have a blast with your toddler making footprints on the dough and pressing imprints of the dinosaurs.
   
   
   
4. Cut the dough into cookie sized pieces with a knife.  I tried to to irregular shapes so it would look like cracks.
   
   
5. Bake according to your recipe directions.
   
   

If you want to make an imprint of the side of a dinosaur, make sure that you press it into the dough REALLY hard so it will show up after baking.

I spent a lot of time looking for dinosaur figurines that had different foot shapes, and then Lucky was gifted a Terra Container of Mini Dinosaurs for Christmas.  These were the perfect scale to fit many different footprint shapes into the dough.


Candy Dinosaur Nests

I love making chocolate covered crunchy snacks for parties.  Chocolate covered chow mein noodles have become spiders and crabs, chocolate covered pretzels have turned into pumpkins, so why not do something similar to make little dinosaur nests?  I happened to have a huge box of Rice Krispies on hand so I decided to mix these with some melted chocolate chips to create Dinosaur nests.  Ultimately I decided to add marshmallows the mix and create some Chocolate Rice Krispies Treats for the nests.  First, I used  my dinosaur candy mold and colored candy wafers to create some dinosaur shaped candy to sit on the nests.

I microwaved the wafers in a ziplock bag in 30 second increments until it was melted.  I mixed the colors together with my hands and then clipped off a corner to fill the molds.  I mixed yellow and dark green candy wafers to get a gradient of green dinos.  For the middle green I used a ratio of 7 green: 3 yellow.  I found that 40 melted wafers filled 9 of the dinosaur shapes.  For the yellow-green, I used 38 yellow and 12 green dinosaurs.  For the deepest green I used only dark green wafers.

I made the chocolate Rice Krispies Treats and then added balls to a greased muffin tin.  I made sure there was an indentation in the center to form a little cup for the "nest."   Then I added my candy dinosaurs to the center of each nest while they were still warm.  

The dinosaur candy melted just a little bit.  Not enough for the dinosaurs to lose their shape but enough to secure them to their chocolate nests.  These were DELICIOUS and super cute.

Baked Dinosaur Tortilla Chips

I've made my own pita chips before, but I've never tried to make my own tortilla chips. When I found this idea on Pinterest I knew it was a fun project that I could make in advance for Rowdy's party.  I used a Dinosaur sandwich cookie cutter to cut dinosaurs out of some Spinach, Garlic and pesto tortillas. Since I didn't have an oil spritzer, I brushed some olive oil on top of the cutouts and sprinkled them with coarse salt.  I baked the chips at 275 degrees F for 15 minutes.

I hand cut some triangles out of the excess tortillas.  I knew that I would want some small triangles to use to make some dinosaur dip!

There were a lot of extra pieces after cutting out the dinosaurs.  I turned these into chips, too and the boys had them as a crunchy, tasty snack.

Guacasaurus and Hummusaurus

I wish I could take credit for the Guacasaurus and Hummusaurus, but I found the inspiration for these fun dips in a blog post from a 4 year old's dinosaur birthday party.  This was also the inspiration for Rowdy's cake.)  

I used some of the triangle tortilla chips that I made above to create the spines and horns of these fun little creatures.  I forgot to get sour cream so I used some plain Greek yogurt to help make the eyes.  

Dinosaur Cakes

When Rowdy was an itty baby, I found that Wilton had some adorable dinosaur cupcake kits.  These came with legs and tails on the cupcake wrapper, edible sprinkle spines and the heads on toothpicks.

I made some funfetti cupcakes for these little dino cupcakes.  I was afraid that the legs and the tail wouldn't show up if I used chocolate.  

I think that if I were going to design these cupcakes myself, I might make a tail out of candy or something to make that more obvious.  After baking the cupcakes, the wrapper decorations were pretty subtle.

Triceratops Cake

I did a lot of research on my dinosaur party Pinterest page before settling on a cake design.  When I found this Triceratops cake tutorial I knew that it was something I could attempt to re-create myself.

I baked two round cakes plus an extra square cake in a Brownie pan.  Unlike the tutorial, I wanted to use cake for the dinosaur's crest on top of the head.  I cut the triangles such that the side attached to the head was from the edge of the pan.  This meant that the points were thicker and raised up a bit.  

I think it was really brilliant how the tail and the head are cut from one round cake.  (I forgot to take a picture of how they fit together.)  

Icing this cake was... hard.  I don't think I appreciated how hard it would be to frost cut pieces of cake without them falling apart.  I was able to "make it work" and I think that I ended up with a darling homemade cake for my little one.  

I didn't have a backup cake baked if this failed.  I think my backup would have been to quickly make a sheet cake and put my kid's name on it.  Look how cute this Triceratops came out, though!  

In addition to these fun dino themed foods I shared in this post, I turned a lot of other "normal" party foods into dinosaur foods.  I can't wait to show you the spread that I put out at the table!  

I just asked Lucky what kind of birthday party he wants this October.  Lucky has officially requested a Dinosaur themed birthday party, too!  We are gently suggesting other ideas, but I am happy that my kids have picked up my love for dinosaurs. We'll see if Lucky changes his mind as we get closer to October, but I might have to come back to these ideas.

This post contains Amazon affiliate links but I was not paid to feature any specific product.  All product selections and thoughts are my own.  

Sweet & Spicy Pickles

My first batch of pickle relish was a success!  I found the brine to be a little sweet and it definitely could use some kick.  I don't have much spice tolerance myself but Keith and the rest of his family loves spicy food.  I decided to take the same recipe I did before up a notch with some jalepenos and red pepper flakes.

Some of the stem ends of my cucumber are bitter tasting.  Apparently this could be due to the near drout conditions the fruit has seen this summer.  I water my garden every morning, but sometimes by evening the pots have completely dried out.  Cutting a few inches off of the end (and taste testing) removes the bitterness and left me with enough cucumbers to make my pickles.  Only a couple of the pickles were affected this time.

I promise that I won't share every single canning batch I ever attempt with you, but since this blog is my lab notebook of sorts I want to keep track of what I did so I can try to replicate it in the future.

Ingredients

• ~2 quarts sliced cucumbers 
• 2 cups sliced yellow onions (about 2 small onions)
• ~1 cup sliced jalapenos (4 peppers)
• 1/4 cup pickling salt 
• 3.5 cups apple cider vinegar
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1.5 T celery seed
• 1.5 T mustard seed
• 1.5 T red pepper flakes
• pickle crisps - one pinch per jar (yes I have a measuring spoon for this - it is 1/16 of a tsp)
  
  

I am very nervous to slice the jalapenos.  Many years ago, my roommate was slicing jalapenos and then touched her eye.  She was in severe pain for hours and I don't want this to happen to me or my kids.  Therefore, I decided to wear gloves when slicing these peppers.  

I increased the volume of vinegar and decreased the amount of sugar.  I hope to have some left over brine to make some more refrigerator pickles, even if that means that I have to purchase some cucumbers! Other than the proportions, I followed the instructions from the sweet pickle relish recipe I used before.  

I had Keith taste one of the cucumber slices after the 2 hours of soaking and he said that he could already taste some spice!  I hope that I didn't go overboard with the amount of heat... I ate an onion and could handle it.  This may not be the best indication about how spicy these pickles are but at least it might not be totally overpowering.  

I'm a lot less stressed with this batch than I was with the last one.  Of course, I'm worried about giving someone food poisoning.  Or I'm worried about making a jar of mush.  This is why I have a small jar with only a few pickles in it so we can test it in a month or so.  I boiled the jars for 10 minutes in pre-sterilized jars. 

I ended up with 4 pints of pickles plus a few slices in another jar for tasting in a month or so.  All of the jars sealed perfectly.  I also had enough brine left over to make some refrigerator pickles!  I cut a cucumber into spears and then let it soak in the cool brine overnight before tasting them.  Sweet and spicy, but low enough spice that I could handle it.  (When Lucky tasted the pickle he said that it made his mouth hurt - but he didn't cry or seem unhappy.)  They definitely have a kick but something with a low spice tolerance can handle them.  However, Keith said that the cooked pickles were MUCH spicier.  We'll have to see what happens after they've had time to cure.  

Pickles finished 8/25/16

Sweet Pickle Relish

When I was a little girl, I attended a gardening camp called Hill Top in southern Indiana. (The Hilltop Gardening program still exists!) I did this program many summers and had my own plot garden that I shared with a friend and learned about weeding and other gardening techniques.  I made projects that I entered in the local county fair and even won some ribbons for my herb braids and flower arrangements.  One summer, I decided to grow a cucumber in a jar.  I put a baby cucumber in a large Snapple jar covered with newspaper (to protect the baby fruit from the sun).  The cucumber eventually grew so big that you could not remove it from the jar.  I harvested the cucumber and my mom and I pickled it in the jar to have a marvel "How did that get in there?!?"

That was my first, and only, pickling experience.  Since we moved last summer into our first house, I now have a yard and a garden.  I have wonderful crops of zucchini, tomatoes and cucumbers.  We have so many cucumbers that we cannot keep up with eating them so I thought that I would try pickling.

I don't normally post about food I cook unless it is related to another bigger project like a party I'm doing a lot of crafts for.  I used to run a cooking blog, ChemEats, but haven't posted there in years. This adventure into pickling feels very crafty to me, and I wanted to make sure I recorded it to have notes to look back on in case it is a success... or failure.  If there is anyone who understands sterile technique it is someone with a PhD in biochemistry whose dissertation involved a lot of microbiology work!

This first project is a sweet pickle relish.  I bought a bunch of 8 oz jars because I wanted to be able to make small enough batches to use and to give away.  Depending on how this goes, I might start trying other recipes. My cucumber plants are doing pretty well.  We've eaten a bunch but I saved some up for my first batch.  I'm ready to de-seed and chop them up.

The recipe I found for sweet pickle relish calls for 1 cup of chopped red bell pepper and 1 cup chopped of green bell pepper.  I'm bummed that my sweet peppers aren't ripe yet so I decided to just use a red and yellow bell pepper that I purchased from the store.

Turns out the drought conditions (90 degree weather, watering intensely once a day) created some bitter cucumbers.  I was able to remove most of the bitter portions (closet to the stems) and then keep the tasty sweet cucs. I was really frustrated for a while trying to figure out if my cucumbers were rotten.  I'm so glad that the majority of the fruit was usable.

I had just shy of 2 cups of apple cider vinegar so I topped off the last 1/8 a cup or so with white vinegar. Similarly, I only had just over 2.5 cups of white sugar.  Why am I running out of everything?  I hope this isn't completely botched.

This is my first time canning anything for preservation.  I found some resources on sterilizing jars and other tips for canning.  Even though the processing time for this project was 10 minutes, I did sterilize the jars in advance. (I am close to sea level so I did not have to add additional time.) I successfully sterilized the jars before hand.  With the tools it was easy to fill the jars and the seal them in a water bath.  I really really hope that I don't poison anyone with this recipe.

I filled 4 - 8 oz jars with relish.  Like the tip, I filled jars using a slotted spoon and then added liquid to the appropriate head space height (1/4" for this recipe.) I have a TON of the vinegar mixture left over.  I think that I might use it for some refrigerator pickles.  (Grandmama gave me some cucumbers from her garden - I might add them straight to the brine in my left over jars and refrigerate them)  I even added some extra cucumbers to the recipe!  I'm glad to know that I can absolutely reduce the amount of liquid if I'm going to do one batch of veggies.  I am amazed by how much the vegetable shrunk.  Even the refrigerator pickles shrunk a bunch after they soaked in the brine, probably since I didn't take the time to pre-salt them.

Now I have no idea how long I need to wait before trying to eat the pickles.  It looks like it could be ready to eat the relish in a few weeks or a month.  The refrigerator pickles I started eating the next day.  Yum!

Whoops!  I forgot to add the pickle crisps to my relish!  I had planned to add a pinch (I actually have a measuring spoon labeled "pinch"!) of the pellets to each jar before boiling them.  Oh well.

Waiting is going to be so hard.  I can't believe that I have to wait 24 hours now that I've sealed the jars before I can touch them and finishing tightening the lid!  Well hopefully sealed.  I did hear a pop when one of the jars just came out of the bath so hopefully that's a good sign.  I didn't do a good job getting the air bubbles out, hopefully that won't hurt me....

24 hours after canning, I tightened the lids all the way.  One of the four lids went pop.  Maybe the inner lid wasn't centered enough so when I tightened the screw cap it popped the seal pop.  Oh well.  I put this batch of relish in the fridge and after some weeks have passed we'll test it out.

A few weeks later (8/22) we opened up the refrigerated batch of relish and it was delicious!  The brine was a little sweet but there was still some good crisp to the pickled veggies.  I think that my next pickling adventure will require some spice and a little less sugar.

Please share your favorite pickling recipes with me.  What other veggies do you like to pickle?  I think next year I will have to expand my garden so I can preserve even more food!

Relish created 7/27/16.

Halloween Party Food

Tomorrow I will FINALLY share the culmination of all of Lucky's Halloween Birthday party planning.  I had so many awesome photos of the food we served to make a wonderful Halloween Spread that I had to split it into two posts.  Today I'm going to show you the awesome snacks, cookies and other edible treats we served to make a fun themed party.

Pumpkin Cake -  I have already dedicated a whole blog post to the construction of this cake.  This cake has 2 layers but I had to bake 3 because I accidentally cracked one when taking it out of the bunt cake pan. I crumbled up the chocolate cake and mixed it with half a can of chocolate frosting to create "dirt" that I topped with some sour gummy worms (shown in the first picture of this post.)   There is always space for some extra "cake" at a birthday party!  

Pumpkin Popcorn Balls - These are one of my favorite treats to make for Halloween, Thanksgiving or really any fall themed event.  My family LOVES pumpkins and these are tasty for days and days after they've been made.  I've never found green twizzlers for the stems so we usually stick with the standard red ones.  

Halloween Pumpkin Popcorn Balls 

Frosted Sugar Cookies - Themed cookie cutters and sprinkles are the simplest way to add some theme to a party.  I used bat and pumpkin cookie cutters and a boxed sugar cookie mix to make the cookies.  I purchased cookie icing from grocery store baking isle and then topped them off with some Halloween themed sprinkles.  

Black Cat Cookies  - These are another Brown family favorite.  I follow the linked recipe and get 24 cookies.  Shaping the pressed cookie into a cat shape is easier than you might expect.  Just make sure to press in the candy corn eyes and cinnamon nose while the cookies are still hot.  Yum!  

Zombie Finger Cookies - Also known as witch finer cookies, these butter cookies are a light and tasty treat with an almond taste from extract and the almond slice fingernail.  I like to add green food coloring to give the cookies a little extra pop. I prefer to use almond slices to whole almonds since the little cracks make the nails look like they've been through some battle. I bake the cookies with the almonds on the tips and then add some red gel food coloring after to glue them into the impression they've made.   

Chocolate Spiders - Chocolate covered chow mein noodles with candy eyeballs take very little time to make.  Instead of the candy melts I melted semi-sweet chocolate chips in the microwave and covered the crunch noodles.  Pretzel sticks would also work well for this treat.  

Pumpkin Pretzels - I thought I was covered for sweet treats until I came across these chocolate covered pretzel pumpkins on Pinterest.  I used some orange candy coating and green M&M's to cover standard twisted pretzels in one last sweet homemade treat.  

It is acceptable to have many sweet treats at a Halloween party, but I wanted to make sure we also had some savory and salty options.

Mozzarella Eyeballs -  Little balls of mozzarella cheese topped with a green olive slice with a quarter of a black olive slice in the center.  These eyeballs lasted about 15 minutes at the start of the party!   I thought the sword toothpicks made a fun touch, too.

Spooky Cheetos - In 2015 Cheetos brand offered a skull and bone shaped Cheetos around Halloween. I couldn't resist such an easy addition to my themed snack table.  

Guacamole Brain - Have you ever noticed that a head of cauliflower looks a little like a brain?  If you hollow out the head of cauliflower it makes a great spooky bowl for guacamole!  Resting on a bed of salsa and pair it with some orange and black chips and you're ready to go for a Halloween Party.  

Jack-o-Lantern Veggie Platter - This veggie tray has a carrot base, cucumber mouth (that I replenished as needed) and hummus eyes for dipping. 

I'm feeling hungry now that I'm revisiting all of these party snacks!  I can't wait for you to see how this all came together in tomorrow's post.  Stay tuned to see Lucky's Halloween Birthday Party!