Parshas Bo: Plague of Darkness

Black and white cookies this week. Simple but delicious!

Chanukah

Monday nights are Dinner and TALK in our home, and while I usually just focus on preparing food, once in a while my inner creativity breaks through. If I had lots of time I would plan themes and color schemes every week, but there are so many other things in my life vying for my time and mental space. So I don't. But when a special occasion comes around I can't resist having fun with it. Two weeks ago was our golf themed birthday party, and last week was Chanukah. I did a "fire" color scheme, much more fun and bright than the classic blue and silver look!

 

The kids helped me prepare these dreidel-strawberries. It was actually funny, because my husband took a small poll and not a single male around the table had noticed that they were supposed to look like dreidels, while every female thought it was obvious.

both brothers trying to spin the dreidels!

And here is the menorah challah I made for Shabbos.

Parshas Lech Lecha: Like the Stars and the Sand

For this week's parshah we made star cookies, and we sprinkled them with "sand". Even Big Brother Jr. understands why: there are so many stars that we can't even count them!

Here he is rolling out the cookie dough. His older brother was at a friend's house, so he got the be the "star" of the show, without fighting. He really, really likes to eat raw cookie dough and cake batter though, ugh.

I tried out this sugar cookie recipe. It came out excellent- very easy to roll, baked nicely, and tastes good too.  The sand is brown sugar and cinnamon.

Any ideas for next week's parshah dessert? Post in the comments below, I'd love to hear from you.

Tie-Dye Cookies

These aren't the chocolate chip variety, but I figured it would be apropos to start this blog off with baking- cookies, specifically. Today was the upsherin of Big Guy Jr., but more on that later. I enjoy coming up with activities to do with my kids, especially ones where we can get creative, and I have endless ideas and good intentions. However, many of these ideas include preparation, or lots of supplies that I would need to buy (especially in our current post-move situation), or time or space or other factors that I don't have. But baking is something I can always do, and there are many recipes or variations of recipes that are fun and creative. And as you know, or you'll find out, I enjoy baking as well as coming up with projects, so that's always a possible option.

So the morning of these cookies I was thinking of what to do with the kids in the afternoon, but of course there was no major project that I was prepared for. In addition, it was Thursday and I thought it would be nice to have some home baked dessert for Shabbos, so my Mommy head was trying to figure out how I would keep two full-of-energy boys busy while I baked, when it hit me: Baking IS a kids' activity. (I believe in it, like I said before, but sometimes I forget.)

I've seen these tie-die cookies before, but all my cookbooks are still packed away in boxes, so I kind of had to improvise - not that hard because it's pretty basic. I took a regular sugar cookie recipe, divided it into 3 bowls (yes, I have 3 bowls, believe it or not), and added food coloring. The boys had such a fun time mixing the colors, and they really felt like they were playing with play dough. I wasn't sure how this would come out, but it was great in the end, and they even tasted good. The challenge I had was letting go and allowing the boys to have fun without intruding too much on their creativity. I had an image of how I expected these to turn out, but they did their own thing. Also, I had to relax and bre-e-e-a-the when they kept sneaking bits of dough into their mouths, and tell myself over and over that this is for them to have fun!

Even Little Sis joined in the fun! (but not the eating- she's too hesitant of new things for that).

The final product. I know, I know, they don't look so bad... that's because these are the ones I made. The ones the kids made... well... they just didn't get photographed!