Vacation Destinations for Families

Now that Kaitlyn's getting older, I pay attention to family friendly vacation destinations. While I know we probably won't make it to many of these places, I thought it would be a fun list to post for friends and family out there with kids of their own.

It was printed by Parents magazine with descriptions of each resort in the March 2010 issue.


10. Wild Dunes - Isle of Palms, South Carolina
9. Winnetu Oceanside Resort - Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard
8. Hilton Hawaiian Village - Honolulu, Hawaii (I wish!)
7. Club Med Ixtapa Pacific - Ixtapa, Mexico
6. Loews Coronado Bay - San Diego, California
5. Beaches - Turks & Caicos
4. Loews Miami Beach Hotel - Florida
3. South Seas Island Resort - Captiva Island, Florida
2. The Franklyn D. Resort - Runaway Bay, Jamaica
1. Atlantis - Bahamas

Spunky Caterpillar Cake

Kaitlyn's class has a Valentine's Day party today, so Go Blue mom decided to have a little fun and make Kaitlyn and her classmates a special V-day treat. I call it our Spunky Caterpillar Cake.



Kaitlyn helped make the cake and icing, but mommy did the decorating while Kaitlyn hung out with daddy. Sure hope her classmates and she enjoy it!!

Spunky caterpillar's face - I used Twizzler pull and peel for the antlers/antennas (whatever they're called!)

This body piece makes me think of a 'biker dude' with heart and V tattoo's and the piped 'hair'. Inspired by the 80's hairband piece you'll see in a minute.

Piped stars and lines - not as exciting as some of the other body pieces.

This body piece has light pink icing covered with pink edible shimmer powder. Kaitlyn likes the shimmer powder!

Sprinkles were a must, so this body piece (one of the last decorated) got a little of everything, dots, stars, sprinkles, shimmer and 'hair' for the feet.

A sprinkle body piece just for Kaitlyn - gotta have those sprinkles mommy!!

My favorite body piece inspired by 80's hairband music that I was listening to while decorating the caterpillar. It was my first time using the hair/grass icing tip and I loved how it turned out. This piece along with the 'biker dude' add some spunk to her cake!

Another view of the 80's hairband body piece.
The tail of the caterpillar - simple with star and dots to compliment the head and bring it all together.
Other views of the caterpillar cake...

Hope you enjoy it Kaitlyn!!! Thanks for helping mommy!!!

Daddy's Sous Chef

I guess the fun thing about blogging is that it gives 'the blogger' - me in this case, the opportunity to write about people or activities that I care about. In this case, it's a little bit about showcasing my favorite two people baking together. For me, life doesn't getting any better than watching my honey and my baby having fun together and bonding.

Go Blue dad was gone for a week for work and when he returned home, the first thing he did was bake chocolate chip cookies with Kaitlyn. I now officially have two cookie monsters in my house!


Go Blue dad found a great chocolate chip cookie recipe in a recent issue of Cook's Illustrated. It's not available online, but I can tell you the recipe uses dark brown sugar and melted butter for some very delicious tasting cookies.


Go Blue dad browns the butter and it makes our kitchen smell like rich toffee and imparts a subtle toffee flavor to the cookies. You really can't beat the aroma or the taste!



She loved every minute of baking with daddy and despite the warnings against raw cookie dough, she had to try it. Besides... we all do it anyway!!

Kaitlyn enjoying the fruits of daddy and her labor. Yummy!!

Super Bowl Fun - Update

In the last blog I noted that Food and Wine's recipe for Blue Cheese dressing for our hot wings turned out great. I didn't realize that Go Blue dad altered it slightly, so here's the version we made:

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 pound blue cheese (crumbled or cut from a block; ~ 1 cup)
2 scallions (white and green parts chopped)
1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a glass bowl and mix together well. Refrigerate for at least 1/2 hour to allow flavors to blend. Serve with hot wings, celery sticks, carrot sticks or whatever floats your boat!

Super Bowl Fun

Since Superbowl Sunday is upon us once again, Go Blue dad and I decided to try to make some homemade hot wings or buffalo wings. My only request was that we try to bake/roast them instead of frying them.

As accompaniments, we made a deviled dip with crostini and mexican corn on the cob (has a mayo/sour cream/cheese spread on top of grilled corn). We recommend the dip and despite using a recipe for the corn from one of our most trusted sources, it did not turn out, so it's not worth any more blog space.


For the wings/drumsticks:

We reviewed several recipes and settled on two online recipes and a packet of buffalo wing seasoning that I found at the store.

• Food and Wine Recipe: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/baked-buffalo-chicken-wings
• Food Network - Alton Brown Recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/good-eats/buffalo-wings-recipe/index.html
• McCormick Buffalo Wing Seasoning packet

We had 48 wings and drumsticks and ended up creating six different combinations for our wings/drumsticks:

1. Buffalo Seasoning Only
   
2. Alton Sauce/Recipe Only
3. Buffalo Seasoning with Alton Sauce
4. Buffalo Seasoning with Food & Wine Sauce
5. Food and Wine Seasoning with Alton Sauce
6. Food and Wine Seasoning with Food and Wine Sauce

This photo shows the Food and Wine Seasoning with Alton Sauce (top) and Food and Wine Seasoning with Food and Wine Sauce (bottom).

This photo shows the Buffalo Seasoning with Alton Sauce (top) and Buffalo Seasoning with Food and Wine Sauce (bottom).

This photo shows the Alton Sauce recipe only (top) and the Buffalo Seasoning (bottom).


The photo below shows which wings/drumsticks were the hits as only the sauce remains. Alton Brown's sauce of butter and hot sauce (we used Frank's hot sauce as recommended by Food and Wine) tasted the best and most authentic if you've had wings at BW's or other famous wing joints. In the future we will certainly use Alton Brown's recipe for sauce on the wings.


While the combination of Food and Wine's seasoning (oil, garlic and cayenne and salt) tasted good with Alton's sauce, you didn't notice the taste enough to make it worth the extra effort in the future.

I had high hopes for Food and Wine's overall recipe, but the sauce (ketchup, hot sauce and vinegar) was just overwhelmed by the ketchup and general thickness of the sauce. However, the blue cheese dressing portion of the Food and Wine recipe is great and worked quite well with Alton's sauce, so we will keep using that in the future.

We plan to ditch the Buffalo Seasoning dry rub packet - mild flavor alone and didn't mesh well with sauce - left a weird taste in your mouth and the texture was off - gummy/gritty.
As noted above, we made the blue cheese sauce from the Food and Wine recipe (highly recommended) and served the wings with celery sticks - is there any other way?

DEVILED EGG DIP
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/deviled-dip-recipe/index.html

Upon making the dip, we noticed that the ingredients didn't stand out and only tasted egg. So, we doubled the mustard (dijon in this case), pickle, hot sauce, paprika, salt and pepper. Even after doubling several ingredients, it created a soft, subtle deviled dip that worked well with the spice from the hot wings.

The current combination blends nicely and leaves a smooth, creamy dip. We may triple the ingredients outside of the eggs and mayo just to see if it improves the dip or ruins the way it comes together.

Regardless, it's an easy recipe that people should enjoy, especially if they like deviled eggs. We served it with crostini, but it would work well on pita chips or bagel chips and possibly with some nice small ham slices or crispy ham pieces.

Kaitlyn was a trooper while we were in the kitchen today, which we much appreciated!! However, now we are exhausted, but it was a fun experiment since we know what sauce to use to make wings in the future. We may try more of a roasting method than the steam/roast method as used per Alton's recipe just for fun!

My Sous Chef

Kaitlyn's 'school' was cancelled on Friday, so we made Strawberry and Cream cupcakes (yes - even though it isn't strawberry season). She worked as my little sous chef and did a great job!!!

Kaitlyn whisking dry ingredients together for me (above and below).

Blending the butter and sugar while Kaitlyn monitors it's progress.

Okay mommy...time to put the cupcakes in the oven for my friends and me.

Bake, bake, bake!!

While Kaitlyn was napping, mommy made the icing so this tasty treat would be ready for her when she woke up. I made a vanilla buttercream icing with a hint of almond extract and topped all but one with edible red glitter as seen below. Kaitlyn requested blue sprinkles, so what my sous chef wants, she gets. Oh, and yes, that is Elmo on the cupcake wrapper.

Kaitlyn's cupcake with blue sprinkles.

Yummy mommy!!oh...she asked for the fork to eat it. Too cute!!!

Strawberry and Cream cupcake recipe found on:
http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/03/strawberries-and-cream-cupcakes.html

A couple notes about the recipe...

• The cupcake is more bread-like than cake like, but still good as I enjoyed it without the icing and I LOVE icing!! I can't wait to make these when strawberries are in season!
  
• The baker forgets to mention when to add the strawberry puree. I added it at the same time I added the milk mixture when combining wet and dry ingredients - pouring it in thirds.
• If you don't want strawberry seeds, you may want to strain the puree before adding it to the batter.
  
• While the icing worked well, I think a white chocolate ganache or buttercream, or even just white chocolate curls on a light icing would work very nicely with this recipe.
  

Bon Apetite!!

Family Christmas Photos

Hi Family! Here are a bunch of photos from Christmas time. Let me know if you want copies of any of these. Thank you to everyone for coming to visit us. We enjoyed it!!


The first series of photos is Kaitlyn and her Pa Mark painting a turtle at a local "Plaster Playhouse." They used little fans to dry the paint in between coats. Kaitlyn enjoyed it!





This set of photos is from Christmas morning along with the previous blog showing Kaitlyn's big girl bike. Of course, she got spoiled, but it was a lovely morning for us all!

Kaitlyn is checking out Gamma Laurie's necklace...

Now, Kaitlyn is testing out the binoculars Santa brought her with Gamma...

Uncle Tim (above with Gamma) and daddy made brioche french toast for breakfast - yum!!
Kaitlyn making rice crispy treats with us. She measured out the rice crispies for us.

Kaitlyn helping Uncle Tim in the kitchen... our little sous chef! Gamma Linda and Pa Clinton gave Kaitlyn an easel, which she has lots of fun drawing on...

Go blue dad and Pa Clinton cooking...
Kaitlyn and daddy 'fishing' with her handy fishing rod from Pa Clinton. It has a gooey fish on it!




Kaitlyn sampling the goodies for the gingerbread house from Pa Harry.

She decorated the house almost by herself. We helped with the icing.




Outfit for school holiday show...