PKK: January Fun

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Princess Kaitlyn. She lived in a beautiful castle by an enchanted forest, a magical lake, and a fantastically fun playground.

One day, she saw a swarm of fireflies off in the distance while singing and dancing with the boisterous butterflies near dusk. Princess Kaitlyn told the butterflies that she wanted to go meet the fireflies. The butterflies told her that they lived in a special part of the forest where a mirror of silk covered the ground to reflect the light when the fireflies lit up at night. It was a special light show in the enchanted forest for the fireflies. Given the delicate nature of the silk ground covering, only animals, insects or people that can fly could visit the fireflies.



The boisterous butterflies saw how sad Princess Kaitlyn looked when they told her about the flying requirement to meet the fireflies. So, they decided to help her out. The butterflies told Princess Kaitlyn how to make a special concoction so that her nose would light up (like Rudolph) and she would grow wings to fly and meet the fireflies. She had to mix cherries in a special red elixir and mandarin oranges in a sweet syrup. Upon eating this concoction, Princess Kaitlyn would be able to fly to fireflies and swirl around in the air with them making streams of light at dusk and long into the night.

So, Princess Kaitlyn saw mommy updating this story. When I recounted it for her, she informed me that I had the story wrong and that she wanted to fly to meet the flying lion and sore through the enchanted forest with her do loop d' loops, dives and swirls in the sky. Oops...I get all these stories mixed up!

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This is a passion cake that we made from a Kids Nutritious & Healthy Cookbook for another Princess Kaitlyn's Kitchen. The ingredients were quite fun (turbinado sugar, whole wheat flour, shredded carrots and pumpkin pie spice) and it turned out to be a nice, not overly sweet, bread like cake. It had a light cream cheese icing that went on top. Pa Mark and I enjoyed it more than daddy and Kaitlyn. Granted this poor cake had to compete with Dobash cake from St. Louis, which Kaitlyn declared as her favorite.

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We invited some friends over for dinner and the girls made their own personal pizzas. They rolled out the dough, put on the sauce, added cheese and toppings. It was fun to watch them make it and enjoy eating it. The parents dined on crab cakes instead - yum!

Good out of not so good

I found a recipe for a Seven-Layer Greek Dip. It had hummus, cream cheese with garlic, dill and lemon juice, cucumbers, tomatoes, kalamata olives, green onions, feta cheese and parsley in it. At first read, it sounded quite tasty. However, upon making it and tasting it, we decided it did not quench our foodie thirst. Instead, we found ourselves pining for some Seven-layer Mexican dip - now that stuff is good!

One good thing came out of the recipe...the cream cheese mixture (the bottom layer) would work quite well as a vegetable dip. While I am typing the ingredient list with cream cheese, I wonder if you could cut the fat/calories by substituting some of the cream cheese with greek yogurt. Here is our recipe:

• 1 pkg. cream cheese, softened (you can use light or fat free if you wish)
• 1-2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 - 2 tsp. dill weed
• 2 tsp. lemon juice (fresh squeezed preferred)

Using a stand mixer or food processor, combine the cream cheese, minced garlic, dill weed and lemon juice. Beat until light in color and until it has the 'whipped' texture - okay fluffy. Allow to chill for an hour or more so the flavors can come together. Bon apetite!

PKK: Apple Stepping Stones

Welcome to Princess Kaitlyn's Kitchen! But first look at me, I'm sitting!!

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Princess Kaitlyn. She lived in a beautiful castle by an enchanted forest, a magical lake and a fantastically fun playground. One day Princess Kaitlyn ran through the castle grounds to the fantastically fun playground when she stopped dead in her tracks. In front of her stood an EMPTY playground!


Instead of all the slides, monkey bars, rock climbing wall, and swings, stood green and red circles. They looked like gigantic stepping stones. She noticed the not-so nice, slithery snack Serano slowing moving around the playground.

Princess Kaitlyn walked over to Serano and asked him what happened to all her playground equipment. He explained that it was a game and that she had to use the red and green stepping stones to build a path from one side of the playground to the other. She could use mud, rocks, feathers or whatever she needed to build her path. Once she made it across the stepping stones, Serano would return the playground to it's fantastically fun state.


So, Princess Kaitlyn started creating a path to get across the super sad playground landscape. She added some mud onto a green disk with some rocks to give her traction. Then she added mud and feathers to the red disk to cushion her jump onto it. She continued this pattern on each green and red stepping stone until she made it across. When she reached the other side, she looked at Serano with her hands on her hips and big wide eyes waiting for him to return her playground back to normal. He lived up to his end of the deal and with a twirl of his slithery tail, a twist of his snake noggin and two blinks of his yellow eyes, the fantastically fun playground returned.



Princess Kaitlyn's Stepping Stone Apple Snacks

Ingredients

• 1 green apple
• 1 red apple
• peanut butter
• chocolate chips
• caramel sauce
• coconut
• dried cherries or cranberries (optional)

Instructions

Princess Kaitlyn's mommy sliced the apples into thin 'stepping stones' for Princess Kaitlyn to decorate. She decided to spread peanut butter and chocolate chips on the green granny smith apples and caramel and coconut on the red apple. We adapted this recipe from a kid friendly cookbook and it also recommends dried fruit and oatmeal as a potential topping.

The great part about this is that despite the sweet toppings, Princess Kaitlyn opted for the plain apple in the end.