During our spring break last month my mom, who is a fifth grade teacher, visited us and offered to host a Harry Potter party for my son and his friends. Now, it’s important to point out that to my son and his friends a day of learning math, earning points for correct answers, and “buying” prizes like house badges (Go Ravenclaw!), bookmarks, chocolate frogs, and wands is considered a Par-tay. My mom delivered.

Mom arrived on Monday and we all planned and baked and decorated for two days. Max would be hosting the party for his friends, my mom would be the emcee/teacher, and Chilihead, Jr. would be the House Elf (helper and score keeper). I disappeared into my room to write a few articles I was committed to.

Now, before I show you the pictures of the party, let’s be very clear that, while I have great SLR camera, I don’t know how to use said camera. So the picture are not great. Also? While the pumpkin pasties and treacle tarts tasted good, the presentation left a bit to be desired. Bottom line? I’m no Pioneer Woman.

First row: Olivander’s Candy Wands and a close-up of a chocolate frog

Second row: Chocolate frogs and Dragon boogies & Skrewt tails

Third row: Moaning Myrtle’s Bathroom and Pumpkin Pasties

Fourth row: Snape’s Dungeon and the Sorting Hat

Fifth row: treacle tarts

• Dark Chocolate Martini via Cook & Eat

• Flayed Skin Cheeseball via Dabbled

• Eyeball Caprese via Evil Mad Scientist

• Nobody does cocktails like Martha. Check out her Ghosts in the Graveyard (and other drinks). Black vodka–does it taste like licorice? If not, I’m in.

Don’t forget! The Bloggy Giveaways Quarterly Carnival will be taking over my blog next week! You can join the fun over at Bloggy Giveaways!

The Background:

The Story:
My husband was preparing to go somewhere (probably to play golf) and
forgot something in the house. He went back in and when he came out his
truck was rolling down the driveway, across the street, across the cute
family’s lawn, and into their chimney. Yes you read that right. INTO
THEIR CHIMNEY–he forgot to set the truck’s emergency break on that big
hill of a driveway.

That was bad enough, but the family was actually
out in their driveway watching the truck roll toward their house and
wondering why my husband was trying to run them over. When my husband
came running out the house his first thought was for the cute family’s
cute little daughter. Thankfully, she was fine and no where near the
truck.

As it turns out the truck did not do any damage to their home.
Woo hoo! You would think this is where the story ends. If I weren’t
such a busy body it probably would have ended there, but read on.

As my husband is relaying this story to me I am mortified. How on
earth were we going to make this up to them? Well, duh! I’ll make them
rice crispy snacks! Nothing says I’m sorry I hit your house and almost
ran over your family like a batch of rice crispy snacks. Right? So you
see my logic.

At that time I was not known for my prowess in
the kitchen. Seriously, though, how hard could rice crispy treats be?
So I gather my ingredients, my pot, and my spatula. I’m stirring and
I’m stirring. Then I take out my spatuala. Hmmmm. Something looks
different…My spatula is now a stick without the flat spatula part.
Huh? Where’d it go? I dig a little though the mix and can’t find it.
Maybe it melted? Ah well. It’s still good. Yes, again, you read that
right: IT’S STILL GOOD. I proceeded to spread the mix into the pan and
take it over to the neighbor’s house. Yes. I. Did. I also saved a
little sumpin’ sumpin’ for myself.

I presented my masterpiece to the neighbors and they gave me a tour of
their house. I apologized profusely and hoped they would take the rice
crispy treats as a token of my embarrassment.

When I returned to the
house I dove into my little stash. Two bites in I can’t chew the
treats. I take that piece out of my mouth and…it’s the spatula.

In answer to your obvious question: Yes. I’m available to cater your next event.

This post was re-posted for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a contest sponsored by the American Egg Board. It was originally published on my blog in January, 2006.

The winner of this giveaway is Happy Momma!

Last week one of the amazing marketing gals that sends me free stuff to review e-mailed me to see if I wanted a $25 gift certificate to Outback Steakhouse to celebrate their 20th birthday this month. I said, ‘Hey, sure, but how about one to give away to my readers? They totally rock.’ And she agreed because she’s awesome like that.

So here’s the marketing spiel from my gal:

Outback Steakhouse is celebrating its
20th birthday this month and with that comes the anniversary of the Bloomin’
Onion, Outback’s signature dish and the first item on the menu 20 years
ago.

Here are some interesting facts on the
Bloomin’ Onion:

• Outback has sold more than 133.5 million
  Bloomin’ Onions.
• 15 million Bloomin’ Onions are sold
  each year.
• Before it is “bloomed,” each onion
  is specially grown to be 16 ounces big and 4 ¬Ω inches wide!
• The Bloomin Onion remains true to its
  original recipe: 17 different spices to flavor the onion and an additional
  37 spices in the dipping sauce.

In honor of its birthday, Outback has
also created a select number of special menu items that are only available
through the end of April. 

OK. Now, you want to win that gift certificate so you can order a Bloomin’ Onion or one of the other special menu items, right? Here’s what you need to do: leave me a comment. Just one comment (duplicates make me annoyed and you don’t want to make me annoyed–yes I’m totally aware of the grammar of that sentence. I sacrificed the grammar for the poor Hulk reference.).

Want more than one chance to win? You can post about Outback’s 20th birthday and link to their special menu items to spread the word. Then come here and leave your permalink so I can verify that you do you, indeed, have a double entry for this giveaway.

I’ll leave this giveaway open all week and choose a winner on Friday. I’ll e-mail the winner and then said winner will need to contact the vendor to have the card sent to you. Don’t worry–I’ll have all the info you need. Good luck!

I received the oh-so-popular Deceptively Delicious Cookbook for my birthday. Now this book, despite its struggles with accusations of plagiarism, has received decent reviews all over the bloggy world. However, I’m not a big puree-er. Or hider. Or cauliflower, spinach, squash eater. And I don’t usually inflict those on my family either because that would mean partaking of said veggies myself. So I do like other moms: I put weird things on plates and argue with my children about why they must eat it and explain the "try it 11 times" rule. (You know that one, right? It takes about 11 times of trying a food before you may actually like it? I swear. You can look it up in the handbook if you know where yours is. And if you do, you’re a show-off.) Anyway, I hadn’t bought the book so I was happy to receive it as a gift.

I read and re-read the book. It’s optimistic. Besides being a bit on the perfect side, Mrs. Seinfeld makes it sound like I could really, truly, actually make this work. So I made a list of veggies to buy and puree: chickpeas (I’ve never bought these), couscous (ditto, but this isn’t to puree), baby spinach (this may be the first time it doesn’t turn to soup in my fridge), flaxseed meal (what?). Some other stuff too. Like Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies and Zebra Cakes. You know, for balance.

Then.

Then I saw the Betty Crocker Molten Chocolate Cake. Holy sweet chocolate divine. A single serving. Add water and microwave for 1 minute, 15 seconds. Hell. YES.

I left my cart finished up, hurried home, dumped the groceries, and quickly added the 1/4 cup of water to the mixture. And yes, I totally took that fudge packet and squeezed every bit of "extra" fudge right. into. my. mouth. Mmmhhhmmmm. I said it. You do it too, so don’t be all up in my grill about "ewww gross".

When my sweet mound-o-chocolate-n-fudge was finished I relished every single bite. I ate slowly and enjoyed the mushy fudginess. I think actually involuntarily closed my eyes at one point. Then I looked at the bowl and realized with horror that the fork I was using would not be up to the task of scraping the dregs of mushy fudgy goodness out of the roundness of the bowl. Physics simply wasn’t on my side.

Since I was upstairs and nowhere near the silverware drawer (who really calls it flatware, anyway?) I was in a terrible quandary. There was nothing for it but to slide my finger completely around the bowl and rescue every bit of chocolate and deposit it in my mouth. Because I’m all about the class.

Huh? What? Oh. The cookbook? Yeah. I’m going to puree tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes. In the mean time, why don’t you go try the Betty Crocker Warm Molten Chocolate Cake? Because? YUM. You are soooo going to use your finger.

Each piece has a part of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.

AND! They were on sale! Each dinner plate was $4.49! Each salad plate was $4.49! (These are available at Dillard’s, btw.)

And the serving pieces!

To die for right? Except you might not know that they really could be. To die for, that is. Because? They are made in China. So now I have to go by a lead detection kit.

UPDATE: I did NOT find any lead in the dishes. Whoopee!

• 3 c all-purpose baking mix (like Bisquick)
• 1 lb ground hot pork sausage
• 1 (8 oz) block Muenster cheese, shredded (Ha! Muenster. Get it?)
• 1 (7 oz) jar pimento-stuffed Spanish olives

Instructions

1. Combine first three ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Mix until blended (I don’t use a mixer, just a wooden spoon).
3. Shape mixture into 1 1/4 inch balls.
4. Place on lightly greased baking sheets.
5. Press one olive into the center of each ball.
6. Bake at 400° for 15 to 18 minutes or until lightly browned.

Yield: About 4.5 dozen

As a special after-school treat I decided to make cookies for the kids. Nothing fancy, just the break-apart cookies from Nestle. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

The problem is that I’m still figuring out my oven. It never seem to bake the cookies right. The package says bake for 10-12 minutes, but I always have to bake for much longer before they aren’t raw.

This time, apparently I under-baked one batch and over-baked the other. Actually, I love the under-baked ones: they are gooey in the middle and crunchy on the edges. Perfect.

Except that they are flatter than pancakes.

The next batch I over cooked. I couldn’t even get them off the baking stone. I had to chip them away. I was left with mostly crumbs.

Of course, none of this deterred the chilluns and me. We ate every single one of them while we played Clue.

Professor Plum, in the lounge, with the wrench. It’s always the quiet, bookish types. You know?

This is absolutely shameless, I know. I am resorting to using my blog for a sales pitch. Please accept my apologies and feel free to move on to another blog without responding–I will completely and utterly
understand. However, if you have pity for me and my daughter, read on.
Especially if you are in the Tulsa area (if you aren’t then you probably don’t wanna buy anything from use because then I’ll have to send it and god only knows how much that’ll cost!). If you are out of town, we are still happy to sell to you, but I’ll need to invoice you via PayPal before we send you the cookies. (Thanks to GiBee for that fabulous idea!)

Wild Thing is a first-year Brownie and Girl Scout cookie sales are
going on now. The ice storm put us behind on our sales and we currently
have sold a whopping TWO boxes! (Thanks, Charlotte!) We’re on our way! If you or anyone you
know is interested in buying some very tasty Girl Scout cookies, please
send them our way. I’ll list the cookies below and you can feel free to
respond (or not!) with the kind of cookies and how many boxes of each
you’d like to purchase.
You can e-mail me privately at mdmnelson at gmail dot com if you would rather.

Each box is only $4. Ordering ends on Sunday, Feb. 4. Cookies
will be delivered/mailed (if you’re out of town) on March 1. You pay
for the cookies when you receive them.

Types of cookies:

• Samoas:
  Tender vanilla cookie, covered with caramel, rolled in toasted coconut,
  and striped with a rich, chocolaty coating. Count per pkg: 15
• Thin Mints – extra thin, extra minty
    Thin wafers covered with smooth cocoa coating and made with natural peppermint (Approximate count: 38).
• Do-Si-Dos – peanutty excitement
  Naturally good! Crisp and crunchy oatmeal cookies with creamy peanut
  butter filling and no artificial color or flavor (Approximate count:
  22).
• All Abouts – celebrate Girl Scouting
  These beautifully designed shortbread cookies have a series of Girl
  Scout messages on top and a rich fudge coating on the bottom
  (Approximate count: 16).
• Trefoils – light and delicious
  Tasty, tender shortbread cookies that melt in your mouth (Approximate count: 44).
• Tagalongs – wildly popular
  Tasty cookies topped with creamy peanut butter and covered with a luscious chocolate coating (Approximate count: 15).
• NEW! Café Cookies – a gourmet-style cookie
  Carmelized with brown sugar, this charmingly crisp cookie will delight
  all cookie connoisseurs. With a hint of cinnamon spice, it’s perfect
  with your favorite hot beverage (Approximate count: 47).
• NEW! Sugar-free Little Brownies
  Made with real chocolate chips! An explosion of chocolate flavor in a
  bite-sized package! You won’t believe this luscious treat is
  sugar-free. (Approximate count: 20)

Thanks for your support and help! And don’t forget, you can pay via PayPal!