Flying Barrel Of Monkeys » cooking

Stylin’ Sous Chef

MamaMonkey — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:51:41 +0000

Another busy weekend has come to an end. I was in charge of the audit committee for church, so I had meetings this week to make sure the books all balanced. Luckily this was the last year for my participation on the committee – four years is enough for now. MonkeyBoy came with me one evening and he surprised me by happily playing by himself for the three hours we were there. I had taken snacks and some of his “baby” toys to leave in the nursery, and I also broke out my laptop with a favorite Mickey Mouse DVD towards the end. But he happily raced around bouncing between the piano, the church air hockey table, and the nursery keeping himself busy and giving me time to work. While I love playing with him, I’m glad that he’s also learning the valuable skill of entertaining himself.

MonkeyMan and MonkeyBoy cooked up a few pans of banana bread on Friday night. I’m not sure why MonkeyBoy decided he needed a crown, cape, and safety goggles to be a sous chef.

The boy certainly has his own sense of style.

Are you a nutritionist?

MamaMonkey — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:30:57 +0000

It was our turn to take snacks to preschool again today but I wasn’t feeling very artsy like the last snacks. I knew they were finishing up their snowman theme, so I made up one more snowman treat. I mixed up Chocolate Mini Wheats, broken pretzels, dried fruit, and mini marshmallows in a giant bowl and dubbed it “snowman snack mix”. The mini wheats were “snow covered ground”, the pretzels were “stick arms”, the fruit served as “face/button pieces”, and the marshmallows were the “snowballs”.

Since my crafting room is just about clean and the giant tub of mix seemed a headache for the teachers to serve and it was mixed in a container with no lid so it required new packaging, I decided to use some of my stamping supplies to baggie up the treats for the kids. Plus that way I got to be anal and make sure each child received an equal number of marshmallows so there would be no fighting at snack time. I ended up with 14 of these:

As I walked into the classroom this afternoon, I was greeted by one of his teachers with “Are you a nutritionist?” I laughed and assured here that no, I wasn’t. She said that the snacks we bring are always so good and packaged in just the right sized amounts, and MonkeyBoy’s lunch is always so appropriately packaged that they had decided that I must be a nutritionist. Clearly, they don’t know about the Froot Loops post from last night.

Snacks and stuff

MamaMonkey — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 03:24:15 +0000

It was our turn for snack again at school (sorry, Jessica, you might want to scroll past this one!) The class has been studying snowmen (kind of crazy since average temperature is usually in the 60s, but I digress) so I made a savory cheese dip snowman with crackers. I was amazed at how easy this one was to make. I’m definitely adding it to my winter recipe rotation.

When I went to pick up MonkeyBoy after school the teachers confided that they didn’t think the kids would like the snack, but that the kids loved it! I had sent along my four penguin spreaders and apparently snack time took on a playtime air as the kids took turns digging into the snowman and spreading him onto their crackers.

I have to be careful what pictures I show MonkeyBoy. Twice in the last day he’s looked over my shoulder as I try to organize my photos and recognized his younger self playing with toys. And he demands to know just where those toys are. Luckily, I was able to find the toys in question, but it’s not always going to be that way.

The reason I won’t always be able to do #2 is because I’ve started spring cleaning a little early this year. Instead of setting new year’s resolutions, I decided to set monthly goals. January’s goal is to remove 10 things from the house each day. So I’ve been throwing away, recycling, craigslisting, and ebaying things left and right. This morning I shipped off a 15 pound box of stamping stuff I no longer use to some ebayer who paid me over $100 for it. Win-win: cleaner craft room and cold hard cash. I’ve sold off a few of MonkeyBoy’s toys that he’s outgrown and I have another batch of them that we are going to take up to the church nursery so that he and his friends can still enjoy them, but they aren’t cluttering up the house.

We went to Ikea on Saturday and came home with two bookshelves and two desks, in five boxes. I love my car. We were able to safely fit two adults, a child in a carseat and four boxes inside the car with all the doors shut. That fifth box? We strapped it to the roof with complimentary twine.

All of the new desks and shelves have been assembled and one of the old desks was craigslisted away. We’ll probably have to drop the price on desk #2, but hopefully it can go this week.

MonkeyMan used the playroom as the location for furniture assembly, which means that MonkeyBoy was a willing assistant. After MonkeyMan’s new server tower shelf was constructed, MonkeyBoy used it as a drive-in window. He would stand behind it and tell us to order food, then he would go over to his little kitchen and “cook”. When it was done, he would pass the food through the open shelving. He called himself ‘Chik-Fil-A” which was ironic since it was on a Sunday, a day when that particular restaurant is closed.

In addition to assembly, Moneyboy also offers furniture testing services. He checked out my new storage cubbies by climbing into them.

I take pictures of the items I sell, since I think seeing the current condition helps to market the item. I didn’t put this one up though, since I worried CPS might come visit.

Don’t see what’s wrong? How about with the doors open?

That child loves to hide!

There’s no #10. My dad is waiting for the blog to post so he can go to bed. Goodnight, Dad!

When I asked MonkeyBoy about his day at school he told me “We had a snowman snack. My mommy made it. It was yummy. It had raisins in it. Raisins are yucky. Blech!”

Turkey food art

MamaMonkey — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:40:29 +0000

For snacks last Thursday I went with sweets since it was the last day of preschool before the Thanksgiving break. I had to make treats for all the teachers for their appreciation meal so I made a few extra for MonkeyBoy’s class snack. I used Rice Krispies for the body, Oreos for the base and tail, candy corn for the beak and feathers, and chocolate frosting to seal them all together. The sad part is I didn’t save one for myself so I didn’t even get to enjoy the sweet sugary treat.

I also had a bunch of fruit in the house, so I made a fruit turkey for a group get together. Unfortunately, I had to do a lot of last minute preparations for my grandfather’s funeral and I wasn’t able to stay for the party, but I dropped off the turkey for others to enjoy and hope it was well received. I thought it turned out awfully cute!