Today I’m linking up with Organizing Junkie, Life as a Lofthouse, KDBuggie Boutique

Moving over 2200 miles and not bringing everything with us put a few kinks in our kitchen at first. Hello no fridge for a few days and only a small fraction of my kitchen gear. Today marks two weeks in our new place and I am happy to report that I spent this weekend running errands and baking up a storm – I am even happier to report that I can even get back into Menu Mondays because I can finally reliably plan what I’m cooking at night. Although to be honest, there are more rando ‘wanna go out for dinner’ nights because there are just so many rad places to go! This, however, is what I’m planning on for now…I’m including desserts this week because I almost always plan and make those too!

This Week’s Menu (April 23 – 29)

Sunday – Homemade Pizza and Calzones and Peas and Thank You’s Peanut Butter Blondies for dessert

These treats are Wednesday’s dessert this week and so simple I don’t even want to call this a recipe! You just make your favorite brownies and once they’re cool, cut out cute shapes with cookie cutters and ‘glue’ them to pretzel sticks with melted chocolate. Adorable, right?! If you’re super lazy really pressed for time, you can even use a brownie mix. Yes, I’m judging you (that can’t be a huge surprise).

I’m almost positive I’ve posted this recipe for brownies before but I’ll post it again because I know it by heart and it’s such a great brownie recipe you should know it by heart too and I swear it only takes like maybe two whole minutes longer than a mix. True story. It’s easy for a weekday dessert for the kids too!

Preheat your oven to 350, and melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Once it’s melted, remove from heat and stir in the sugar till it’s melted and the eggs until they’re combined. Then add the vanilla.
In a smaller bowl, sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Then dump that into the pot with the melted butter mixture.
Stir, stir, stir!!
Pour the batter in a greased brownie pan and bake for about 25 minutes. Then attack with your cookie cutters.
Now melt some chocolate chips and dip the pretzel sticks in the melted chocolate and then poke inot each brownie shape. Voila!

I know I’m not going to get any sympathy for this but man it’s hard to stay on a productive routine down here. The weather is so lovely and if it isn’t the beach calling my name it’s the pool – or it’s the kids wanting to check out one of the eleventy billion neat things there are to check out here. We also do at least four hours of homeschooling every weekday morning so that takes a serious bite out of the day as well. We have managed to force a routine on ourselves this week though. After my husband leaves for work (at what feels like the crack of dawn), I down water and a pot of coffee, wake the kids, feed them and do school until about noon. If we have an adventure planned, away we go. If we don’t, we’re off to the pool. Then we’re back in time for me to do some cleaning, make dinner, usually with the assistance of my lovely 6 year old sous chef and it’s ready when my husband gets home from work. Tidy, baths, stories, get the two little kids off to bed and theeeeeen I have time to crack open my laptop get a blog post out and then chat with my honey while I knit or bake or whatever. Phew. It’s a full life, but it’s hella good. <3 There is a Whole Foods and a Trader Joes in the same plaza just a few minutes from us! Imagine my glee – go ahead, imagine it! Considering that less than a month ago we were living in the woods and the closest Whole Foods to me was at least two hours away and that we are sorely deprived of Trader Joes in Canada, this is big, big news. I like to go at night after my husband gets home so I can actually hunt down the vegan cream cheese without three kids begging for organic gummy bears (the new fave treat around here). I have been cooking and baking my way through Peas and Thank You still and OMG what a great cookbook! Lots of updates on that next week!

I’m still adding recipes to the site without blog posts so I have a nice record of everything I’ve made! Here is what I’ve added lately!

	I have a pretty serious problem with these candied pecans. I mean, I don’t want to admit this but in the interest of full disclosure, I ate all of them. Not in one sitting mind you, but I ate every single pecan. They really are that good. Of course they are though, right? It’s not like I’m going to post a loser recipe on my blog. One other side note about these little babies is they’re vegan! Hooray! (read).
	They really are so so good. White chocolate and macadamia nuts are a perfect pairing! We included this in last year’s cookie tin and everyone loved them. (read).
	Polymer clay is so fun to make little trinkets and buttons and pendants with. It’s essentially play-doh you bake to set it and keep it forever. Since it sets up really hard you can make buttons and actually use them in garments! Or you can make little beads and string them on thin elastic for bracelets or necklaces. Kids especially love making them and grow ups with a soft spot for that specific child will love receiving (and wearing) them. So cute. (read).
	Just cut the apple into thin slices, carve out the core of each slice (if you have an apple corer, just pop the whole thing out first) and fill the middle with peanut butter, cranberries and chocolate chips. Then sprinkle with cinnamon. You can fill it with whatever you want. The point is to keep it healthy and keep it small (read).
	These cookies are so painfully simple, they’re easy and fun to make with kids and you can roll them in any kind of baking candies to match whatever occasion you like. (read).
	I knitted this blanket for our cousin Jenn and her new husband Adam. They’re mega, super rad. It was a pretty easy knit once I got going on it, the bulk of it was a bit much in warmer months, but totally worth it. (read).
	I made these when I wanted to serve up something cute and simple, but that was a little more ‘adult’ than typical apps I make for the kids after school. (read).
	This snack is especially handy when people show up unexpected for movie night, or when you’re poking around the kitchen in the middle of the night when you should be in bed. (read).

Happy Orthodox Easter!!!

This parade of frosted Easter love is especially dear to me because I used my Granny’s vintage cookie cutters to make them! It’s always a little sweet but sad to bake with her kitchen gear – she’s the only person who spent as much time in her kitchen as I do!

Today will be spent exploring a beach we haven’t checked out yet and general family fun on the wholesome end of the spectrum because today we spent the day in Hollywood and while we met Spiderman and the Green Lantern and Wee One #3 got a hug from Diego, we also saw a whole lotta Hollywood, you know? Yoda totally tried to cop a feel! I mean, hello!

Anyhoo, back to Easter. Usually we spent Orthodox Easter with my extended family (all Greeks have seriously huge extended families) however we will be sending long distance love to them this year and celebrating this one out here.

Moving to California update to come tomorrow!

I know this is a week late for a lot of people, but the Eastern Orthodox Easter Bunny (aka the Greek Easter Bunny in our house) is hopping around this weekend for a lot of us. I’ve mentioned about a zillion times before that I’m from a mixed heritage family, lovingly described as half painfully Canadian and half hardcore Greek. I love this family makeup and as I’ve married into a painfully Canadian family (a painfully Canadian family that I adore) I choose to be the hardcore Greek half, even though I’m hardly Greek enough for the role. It just means I’m a stern mama (most of the time), I insist on celebrating both Easters, both Christmases and the occasional name day – oh and I totally support the desire for two kitchens or at the very least two fridges. If you know any Greeks, that’ll make sense to you. If you don’t, too bad. 🙂

So anyhoo, Easter baskets for Eastern Orthodox Easter! Cheesecake isn’t an often requested treat in our house, but these things were way cute. They would be even cuter with Easter cupcake liners which are officially on my list of things to do next year. Maybe I wont be moving across international lines this time next year! Also, these were actually made last year.

Easter Cheesecake Baskets – adapted from Kraft

2 8 ounce pkgs cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cups crushed graham crackers
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups flaked coconut, tinted green
36 small jelly beans
12 pieces shoestring licorice, 4″ lengths

Preheat your oven to 350F and beat the cream cheese and the sugar. Add the egg and beat until blended.
Mix the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter, then press into individual muffin cups.
Now pour the actual cheesecake batter over top of the crust.
Bake for about 20 minutes, then cool and pop in the fridge for at least 2 hours. The green coconut is for festive grass but my kids hate coconut so it’s a waste. However, they love mini eggs and jellybeans so I added those to the ‘baskets’ and then the licorice handles! Way cute!

In my quest to cut out the fake food around here, I embarked on finding just the right recipe to give fruit roll ups a try. This one does not involve any stove top cooking or even any pureeing, it’s just good quality jam and corn starch really. That and a little patience.

The wee ones all love these and maybe I do to. They’re excellent in lunch boxes and diaper bags (and in my Anthropologie purse).

Homemade Fruit Roll Ups via Health for the Whole Self

2/3 cup fruit preserves
2 tsp corn starch

Mix the fruit preserves and the corn starch in a small bowl. Cut a length of parchment paper.
Spread out strips of the fruity goo on the parchment paper and bake at 225F for 45 minutes.
Mine all spread into each other, but that’s nothing a pizza cutter couldn’t fix!!

This is one of those ridiculous after school snacks I have made for the kids that they absolutely loved, and I felt especially silly making! The kids next door were here when I made them and they thought they were hilarious and amazing. Both snacks are super easy to make and are a really cute and filling snack for wee ones (and maybe some grown ups too). 😉

Hot Dog Noodles and Chicken Fingers

Just poke the uncooked spaghetti through sliced raw hot dogs and pop them in a pot of boiling water.
Whisk up your egg and place your breadcrumbs in a shallow bowl.
Mix the flour with the wheat germ and place in a shallow bowl. Pound out your chicken breast between two pieces of plastic wrap, slice them into ‘fingers’.
Roll each piece in the flour/wheat germ mixture, then in the egg.
Coat in the seasoned breadcrumbs, then bake for about 20 minutes at 375F.

This week, I’m linking up with Polly Want a Crafter, Motivate Me Monday, Made By You Monday, Make It Monday, More the Merrier Monday, Masterpiece Monday, Craftomaniac Monday, Make It Monday, Metamorphosis Monday, Making the World Cuter, Make It Yourself Monday, and Bedazzle Me Monday! Check out the projects in these links, so creative and so fun!

Don’t forget about our giveaway with Keeley Behling Studios! Like the Keeley Behling Studios Facebook page and leave a comment there about something in her Etsy shop to enter. It wouldn’t hurt if you liked the So Very Domestic Facebook page too. 😉

Sidewalk chalk is amazing and fun for little kids, and even my girlfriend and I have been known to scribble some masterpieces on the sidewalk outside our old house in Toronto. Out here in the woods though, it’s 99.9% gravel driveways and seriously lush grassy yards. Pretty, yes. Sidewalk chalk friendly, not so much. One of the selling points for this house (to the kids anyway) was the concrete patio in the backyard. The girls immediately realized they could make chalk drawings out there. Sidewalk chalk was, no lie, one of the very first things they went hunting for to unpack when we first moved in. Hilarious. So when I came across this quick project, I was aaaaall over it.

Chalk Paint adapted from Infarrantly Creative

1 teaspoon washable paint
1 cup hot water
1/2 cup cornstarch
squirt dishwashing liquid
1 squirt bottle

This little project is crazy easy and fun for the wee ones. Add the cornstarch to the hot water and mix till there are no clumps, then add the paint and soap and voila! Chalk paint!

I drew outlines of a crown and some stars on the back patio for the girls to fill in and they were out there painting till it got chilly and I had to turn the lights on and get their coats!

Wee One #2 is a serious Barbie kid and loves all things pink, so naturally for her 6th birthday we went all out. She’s really turning into a mini May and it’s totally happening just by watching me. When she decided she wanted a Barbie party she did three things that struck me as so very … me. First, she went to Google for inspiration. Next, she made a board on Pinterest (right here if you’re interested) and pinned things she found and wanted to incorporate into her party. These two steps alone only really prove that she was born after 2000, right? I mean most kids (especially kids with computer geeky parents) would think to do this, right? The third thing though, totally me. She passed over all the glossy post-1980 Barbies and was only interested in the vintage style black and pink old school Barbies. Love!!!

I whipped up some fuchsia buttercream for her three tiered cake, strung vintage Barbie printables and small disco balls from pink curling ribbon from our kitchen chandelier, and set up a cute pink table with treats, loot bags, cutlery, and candy kabobs – as per her instructions! The pink cookies I had made before and liked, but I didn’t loooove them. She however, did. So she insisted they be included in her party and all her wee little girlfriends really, really liked them. I thought the bright pink and black candy kabobs would have stolen the show, or that the crazy sugar coma inducing cake with buttercream would do it, but no. It was the pink jello cookies.

The Chocolate Cake was the same chocolate cake I usually make, with Classic Wilton Buttercream.

Pink Jello Cookies via Kraft Recipes 3 1/2 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 1/2 cups butter or margarine, softened 1 cup sugar 2 pkg. (3 oz. each) Jello Cherry Flavor Gelatin, divided 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla
Cream the butter till smooth (don’t skip this), then add the sugar and one of the jello packages. Beat till totally smooth.
Now add the egg and vanilla.
Slooooowly add in the flour and stop once it’s all combined and pink.
Empty the other jello package in a small bowl, and roll up all of the dough into smallish balls. I got almost 5 dozen. Drop each ball hehe into the jello powder to coat it.
Flatten each ball with the back of a glass and bake at 400F for 8 minutes.

I’m linking up with The Tuesday Glam Party, One Project at a Time, Take a Look Tuesday, Tuesday’s Treasures, Ta-Da Tuesday, Tuesday Time Out and Tuesday Tutorial Link Party. Check out some of the amazing projects in these link ups!

I am always looking for sewing practice, and as I’ve mentioned before and will mention again, I’m not amazing with a sewing machine. I mean, I earn the domestic in my title with my oven and my knitting needles, but yeah, sewing is something I’m still figuring out. So, I try to do it as much as possible and hopefully sometimes the things I practice with are wearable or usable! In this case, it is!

Prudent Baby has a serious archive of quick and useful crafty projects and I love to comb though it for ideas, inspiration and a lot of the time, instructions!

Drawstring Toddler Pants via Prudent Baby
Pair of elastic or drawstring pants that fit your wee one
2+ yards of cute fabric (how much depends on the size of your wee one)
Grommets
Drawstring
Pins, sewing machine, stuff like that…

First, fold the pair of pants that fit your wee one in half and lay them over the fabric. Trace around, adding about 1/2″ for the seam all the way around. Now do it again. Lay them right side facing and pin together.
Sew the curves first, down the sides and hem the bottoms.
This is the part that gave me trouble, I had to keep checking and double checking that I wasn’t about to sew the front of the pants to the butt, you know? I did it! If I can do it, you can defo do this.
Tah-daaaaah!!!
Now for the grommets! You can make an actual drawstring waist or a fake faux drawstring like I did. Snip a wee hole to pop one side of the grommet through.
Then punch the other side through with a hammer. So neat!
This is when I slipped in the elastic and sewed up the waistband, just shy of the grommets.
I cut two shortish lengths of nylon cord and knotted one end of each. I pushed them through the grommets and knotted them again. Then I finished off the waistband and I was done!! When I note in the sidebar that I’m struggling with sewing, that’s no exaggeration. I’ve never been very good at it even though in my head (and only in my head) I’m a brilliant seamstress. So this was great news for the future brilliant seamstress I will become. Ha!
I think my eager little model likes them! This is Wee One #3 with her creepy Joker smile.

I’m linking up with Flock Together Blog Hop and Inspiration Linky Party.

I mentioned a few months ago about my ever mounting paranoia general concern thoughts on how processed some most all of the garbage touted as ‘healthy’ and marketed to kids has become. Though to be fair, I don’t know if it’s right to say ‘has become’, it’s probably always been pretty negative and unhealthy but I didn’t know better as a kid and my hippie father did a pretty good job of sheltering me from stuff like that. I however? Do not do such a great job with the sheltering of my wee ones. They can ask for store those chewy granola bars all they want, I’m not caving, and this is why.

The granola bars I make have 14 ingredients, including the granola. They could only be healthier if I made the marshmallows myself and now that I type that, I will totally make the marshmallows myself next time!

The granola bars with the shiny commercials have 31 ingredients and while most of them are not so bad, too many of them are totally unnecessary. I know they need to be shelf stable, and that’s what they are loaded with preservatives, but man. Like, if I can make and eat them within a few days I don’t need to add any preservatives so while the additives are justifiable for shelf stable, pre packaged crap snacks, I don’t have any use for them – and if you have half an hour or so once a week, neither do you.

Granola via Amateur Gourmet (modified) 2 cups rolled oats 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon salt 3 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vegetable oil 1/4 cup honey 1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Bars via Back to the Cutting Board 4 tablespoons unsalted butter 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar 1/4 cup honey 2 cups plain granola 1 cup rice cereal (Rice Krispies, etc.) 1 cup mini marshmallows 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

First, preheat the oven to 325F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Mix the oats, cinnamon, and salt on a small bowl. Then in a separate bowl, mix the vegetable oil, honey, brown sugar and vanilla.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and make sure all of the oats are coated.
Bake for about 10 minutes, take out and mix it up, then another 10 minutes, take it out and mix it up again and then bake for another 5 minutes.
Now on to the actual granola bars! Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Add the brown sugar and the honey. Stir and heat till it’s melted.
Now add the rice cereal and the granola.
Marshmallows!!
When the marshmallows are partially melted, spread the mixture into a parchment lined brownie pan.
Then cover with chocolate chips!
Cut them into bars and voila!

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baking, granola bars, homemade granola, school lunches