Zucchini Carrot Mini Muffin Recipe

The wonderful site that is Pinterest led me to a yummy muffin recipe (from It's Naptime Somewhere) that was recommended for children and involved zucchini. The main ingredient caught my attention, and since I already had what I needed just sitting in my kitchen, I had to try it.

Veggies + Muffin = Delicious

And try it I did with just a few minor tweaks to the recipe. The mini muffins are a wonderful size for babies who are eating finger food—although, I usually break it into smaller pieces since my 18-month-old twins are used to cut up chunks of food. They are also a nice, tiny size for an adult snack.

Another perk is that they contain no eggs, which is great for two reasons:

1. Little ones with an egg allergy can enjoy these muffins
2. Should your oven not be the most reliable* and fail to thoroughly cook the gooiness out of the muffins, you won't have to worry about salmonella

*My baking has been much more accurate ever since we got our Hamilton Beach oven thermometer. In case you're not familiar, it just sits or hangs inside of the oven and gives you the actual temperature reading. It turns out that our oven needs to be set about 25 degrees higher than what we actually want to get the right temperature. And it typically needs more time than the preheat timer suggests. I can't believe that I have lived most of my life not knowing these exist. Some are pretty inexpensive and should do the trick.


INGREDIENTS

• 1-½ cups flour**
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. baking soda***
• 3 bananas
• ½ cup applesauce or apple purée
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• ¼ cup sugar (or sweetener of your choice)
• 2-½—3 cups of zucchini and carrots (this works out to one zucchini and about 15 baby carrots)

**Using all purpose flour is fine. I ended up doing 1 cup of the all purpose and ½ cup of coconut flour.
***The original recipe calls for baking soda. I accidentally used baking powder. Really, either one is fine for this recipe since both help baked goods rise. I even looked up the differences and found a helpful chart in this article.


INSTRUCTIONS

Set oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Combine flour, cinnamon and baking soda into a bowl, and set aside.

In a separate bowl, mash your three bananas—a potato masher works great.

Stir in the applesauce, vanilla and sugar.

You can grate your zucchini and carrots, but I prefer to chop them up finely in my food processor. The ratio of zucchini to carrot is typically higher, but you can adjust your ratio to whatever you want. Just dump the chopped up pieces into a measuring container to check that you have the overall correct amount.

Throw the tiny pieces of zucchini and carrot into the wet mixture bowl and give it a good stir. Then slowly stir in the dry bowl mixture until your have one nice, colorful bowl of goop.

Grease your muffin pan and generously add mixture to each slot. It should be just the right amount for one tray of 24 mini muffins (or one tray of 12 regular muffins).

It's normal for the mixture to mound over

Bake for 30–40 minutes. You can check the centers with the toothpick trick—if it comes out clean, it should be done. But also take comfort in the fact that no eggs means no salmonella, and some gooiness in the middle won't hurt. The original recipe also recommends letting them cool completely to minimize gooey centers.

My favorite thing about trying this recipe for my kids was that if it turned out they didn't like it, then I had a whole mini muffin tray of treats just for Mommy. Yum!

Turns out that they do like it, but that doesn't mean I don't get to sneak one every now and again.

Dinosaur Egg Crispy Rice Treat Recipe

As miraculous as it is for bunnies to lay eggs in the first place, they're much too small for my tastes. I, instead, went for a dinosaur egg—a much rarer and delicious Easter treat.

I happened upon a dinosaur egg Rice Krispie treat recipe when I was looking for a fun movie night snack for a showing of Jurassic World. I only made a few alterations from the original (mostly slightly increasing the amount of marshmallows and Oreos).

Instead of making a few small eggs, I like to make one larger one that's more appropriately sized for a dinosaur, which is about nine inches long and can fit the entire recipe.

Nine-inch egg mold

Now, HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS.

INGREDIENTS

• 6 cups of Rice Krispies* (or half of a 12 oz. cereal box)
• 9 Oreos* 
• 5–6 cups of mini marshmallows (or one 10 oz. bag)
• 3 tbsp. of butter

*Or in my case, I use the off-brand items, Crispy Rice Cereal and Chocolate Sandwich Cookies.

INSTRUCTIONS

You'll need two large bowls: one for the crispy rice and chocolate sandwich cookies and one for the marshmallows and butter. The one for the marshmallows and butter needs to be microwave safe, and I recommend something in size that's similar to a 2.5 quart Pyrex bowl.

Put Oreos in a Ziplock bag and crush with a mallet or rolling pin into delicious, little pieces.

Dear chocolate sandwich cookie pieces, I will eat you. Sincerely, Me.

Combine Oreo pieces and Crispy Rice Cereal into first bowl, and stir mixture. Put marshmallows and butter into your large, microwave-safe bowl and heat in microwave for 45 seconds. Remove, stir and heat for another 45 seconds.

Remove and stir until mixture is smooth.

Add the cookie and cereal mixture into the yummy melted mixture bowl and stir thoroughly.

Now, press mixture into the mold of your choice and allow to cool.

NOTE: If you decide to sculpt it into your own egg (or other) shapes, use something heat resistant like aluminum foil to form around your treat shapes to keep it from falling apart while it is still warm and malleable.

You'll probably want to cut the giant egg into pieces when serving...

... Or just wait until life finds a way.

It's a baby dinosaur!

Cauliflower and Spinach Topper Recipe

After looking up ways to serve cauliflower as finger foods to babies, I found and made alterations to a cauliflower bake from a website that has a few different cauliflower baby food recipes.

The biggest change was that I added a bunch of spinach and more Parmesan cheese and made it more of a topper than a lone finger food. It's actually quite yummy for adults too—I've tried it on a few different things and as a side.

Cauliflower and spinach as finger food

MAKING THE STUFF

Frozen spinach and cauliflower (12 oz. bags)

INGREDIENTS

• One 12 ounce bag of frozen cauliflower
• 2 tbsp. butter 
• ½ large yellow onion
• 2 tbsp. all purpose flour
• 1 cup whole milk*
• Half of a 12 ounce bag of frozen cut leaf spinach
• ¼ tsp. garlic powder
• ¼ tsp. basil
• black pepper to taste (I used about ⅛ to ¼ tsp.)
• ¼ cup bread crumbs
• ¼ cup Parmesan cheese

*Whole milk is only recommended if your child is at least 12 months old. You can try substituting in formula or breast milk if your child is younger.

NOTE: I prefer using frozen cauliflower and spinach because it is convenient and easy to store in case I don't cook with it right away. You can use fresh vegetables if you prefer. Just make sure that the spinach is properly chopped and the cauliflower is in small enough pieces so little ones can easily eat it.

INSTRUCTIONS

Cook cauliflower until nice and tender (another advantage of these frozen bags is that they are made to be steamed in the microwave).

Meanwhile, melt butter in a pan on medium to low heat, and sauté onions.

Switch to low heat. Blend in flour and slowly add milk until you have a smooth mixture.

Add spinach (thawing beforehand is not necessary) and stir occasionally until it is soft and cooked. Turn the heat back up to medium-low if necessary. Stir in garlic powder, basil and pepper.

Spinach and friends on the stovetop

Drain cauliflower and place in a 7 x 11 inch casserole dish. Pour spinach mixture on top. Sprinkle top with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese.

Generous amounts of Parmesan cheese (with bread crumbs) sprinkled on top

Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes or until top is lightly browned.

Nice and lightly browned on top

EATING THE STUFF
My kids have tried this between the ages of 12 months and 16 months and have not been huge fans of eating it directly as a finger food (probably because it was a creamier texture than they were used to handling). So I cooked up some rotini pasta that I knew they liked and added it as a topper. Not only did it work, but I had some cauliflower, spinach pasta myself. It was yummy.

Eating cauliflower spinach pasta with the kids

Winry (left) examines each noodle while Henry (right) prefers to just dig in, February 2016

The kids chow down, February 2016

I've also eaten it as a side dish and tried it once as a topper to a turkey burger patty. So I highly recommend topping a bunch of toddler-friendly and adult-friendly foods with this cauliflower and spinach mixture. Enjoy!

Cauliflower and spinach topping a turkey burger for Mommy (with cranberries sprinkled on top)

'We Feet Daddy' Valentine

From the foot to the heart

This week's craft is inspired by Pinterest.com and its topic containing a bunch of Valentines made with baby footprints or handprints.

Baby Print Valentines from Pinterest.com

As cute as the bum-print idea is, I happen to find my one-year-olds' extremities to be super adorable, so I thought it would be a great idea to make a footprint Valentine for the father of my twins. I especially like the idea of taking one footprint from each of them and combining them into the shape of a heart.


Supplies
This is just what I used. Obviously, variations can easily be applied

• black and red acrylic paint*
• vellum (or semi-tranluscent) paper
• Scotch tape
• small, thick book
• sponge
• scissors
• paint brush
• Elmer's glue
• Mod Podge
• glitter
• puffy paint
• toothpick
• 8 x 10 inch float frame**

*I recommend water-soluble acrylic paint so it can easily be removed from baby's foot.
**A float frame is just a picture frame with two pieces of glass that are meant to sandwich the picture in rather than having a solid backing. I got mine at Michael's.

Float frame from Michael's

• Oh yeah, and don't forget those little feet—super important

Henry's foot (left) and Winry's foot (right), February 2016

One Small Step...
The first step (pun intended) in this process is getting the footprints from the tiny people. This can be a little tricky since mine are only about 16-months-old and not the best at staying still. I recommend doing it when they're strapped into their highchair and distracted by something yummy.

Gimme that foot, you little face

I used bright red acrylic paint for Winry's foot, and mixed a little black in to make a darker red for Henry's foot. Use the sponge to apply the paint evenly over the foot. I would pat it with the sponge too so you don't have paint streaks showing up in the footprint. Keep a damp cloth handy to wipe foot off once you're done before baby has a chance to toe-paint anything.

Pressing Tip: To make the foot-pressing easier, I lightly taped the vellum paper onto a small book so I had something flat and substantial to press the foot against.

Paper taped to book

Also, make sure you have more than one sheet of paper handy in case the first try doesn't turn out well. Babies like to throw challenges your way now and again.

Paint footprints on vellum paper

Once you get some good ones, let the prints completely dry. Cut them out however you like once they're ready.


Add Some Sparkle
The classy thing to do would probably have been to place the footprints into a heart shape in the float frame and maybe paint a simple heart around them, but I found puffy paint and glitter, so the classy option was immediately voted down.

First, I figured out how I wanted the cut-out footprints to overlap and dabbed a couple of dots of Elmer's glue to the backs of the vellum paper in order to tack it down onto the back sheet of glass from the float frame.

Glue Warning: You may want to keep these dots of glue small or possibly brushed out a little. I kept mine in dot form and later realized that they made the vellum paper wrinkle a little where the glue had made contact since it was a little too much concentrated goop in one area. Double-sided tape may be a better option.

I then brushed Mod Podge into a heart shape around the mounted footprints and sprinkled on the glitter.

Be quick and generous with the Mod Podge so that it doesn't dry before you get a chance to glitterize it

After letting that dry and removing the excess glitter, I painted the words above and below the feet and added a different color of glitter while the paint was still wet.

The footprints and glitter are contained inside of the frame. After everything dried, I placed the second sheet of glass on top of my glittery art and placed everything into the frame.

Puffy paint for the outside—I wanna touch it!

The puffy paint is applied last on top of the front of the glass to add a little depth. I simply traced the shape of the heart and added a few dots. I made a few streaks in the puffy paint heart with a toothpick.


Ta-da!

We Heart (or Feet) Daddy

Henry says, "Happy Valentine's Day, Daddy!!!"

Stain Remover Addendum

I had previously posted about two stain-removing concoctions made up of common household items, which I referred to as Berry-Be-Banished and Grease-Go-Gone. As you can probably surmise, the first one removes berry stains and the second, grease stains. The details of these ingredients and instructions can be found at the original post, 'Tis the Season for Stains.

Since then, I have discovered two things—hence the addendum.

1. Berry-Be-Banished removes blood stains
I had a hunch that this would do the job on blood since it contains Hydrogen Peroxide. I've been told in the past that Hydrogen Peroxide is good for cleaning blood stains. I prefer the Berry-Be-Banished mix (again, found on 'Tis the Season for Stains) since it contains soap and baking soda in addition to the Hydrogen Peroxide and gives the stain little to no chance of survival.

IMPORTANT NOTE: When dealing with blood stains, use cold water. Hot water can actually bind the blood to the fabric, which is the opposite of what we want.

Side Note: No, my daughter did not get into an adorable baby knife fight. A few droplets of blood escaped the bandage from her vaccination shot.

I think it is worth noting that this blood stain had dried on the pants the day before I tried cleaning it, and it still came out almost immediately after I applied the Berry-Be-Gone mixture. Even so, I threw it in a load of laundry (with cold water) afterwards to get that real good clean.


2. Grease-Go-Gone works on cotton fabrics as well as denim
In the previous stain-removing post ('Tis the Season for Stains) I had successfully used the lighter fluid trick on a pair of jeans. Since then, my husband battled some devious french fries and greased up a cotton t-shirt, giving me an opportunity to test another fabric.

Psst... I think my grease-staining husband might be Batman

IMPORTANT NOTE: On lighter (both in color and weight) fabrics than denim, I recommend following the instructions from 'Tis the Season for Stains but reducing the lighter fluid soaking time from 20 minutes to 10 minutes.

On my first try with the t-shirt, the grease stain disappeared, but a very faint mark was left behind—so faint that I thought it was just shadows from the light. It seemed that the lighter fluid was making this small mark. This is why I recommend reducing the lighter fluid soaking time by half.

I actually lightly covered that area with lighter fluid again, soaked for only 10 minutes, rinsed the area out thoroughly with cold water and used the Berry-Be-Gone treatment, including throwing it in the washing machine, for good measure. This seemed to do the trick as you can see from the above image.

Henry doesn't mind sporting his sister's floral shirt on laundry day, January 2016

Cranberry Apple Oatmeal Recipe

My husband makes a mean cranberry sauce every holiday season. This year, he bought more frozen cranberries than we needed, so I've been using them for baby food.

Gerber Oatmeal Cereal

It's very simple and only involves three ingredients.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup cranberries (frozen is what I use)*
• 3 Gala apples
• baby oatmeal cereal

*IMPORTANT NOTE: Cranberries contain good stuff like Vitamin C and antioxidants, but since they are also acidic, it is not recommended that they be fed to a baby younger than eight months. And as always, introduce new foods one at a time to determine if baby has any allergies.


INSTRUCTIONS

Rinse your apples. Then core and cut them into small pieces (roughly half inch cubes). You can peel the skins if you want. I find that Gala apple skins get plenty soft and baby-eatable after being cooked and puréed, so I don't bother removing them.

Put the apples and cranberries in a large sauté pan. Fill pan with water until it about halfway covers the fruit. Then set the stove to medium-low heat and let simmer until most or all of the liquid has evaporated.

apples and cranberries in sauté pan

Drain the remaining water, if any, and throw softened apples and cranberries into a food processor. Blend until smooth. You can add whole milk, formula or breast milk while blending if needed—just make sure not to use whole milk until baby is at least one-year-old.

When ready to serve up to baby, mix desired amount of purée to baby oatmeal cereal. I use the Gerber Oatmeal Cereal and mix as much milk (or whatever nutritious liquid your baby is consuming) as needed for desired consistency. You can make the purée to oatmeal ratio whatever you want. I typically do about half and half so that the sweetness and tartness of the fruits are not too strong.

Cranberry apple oatmeal, soon to be on my children's faces

Henry (left) and Winry (right), aka My Messy Faces, December 2015

Storage tip from a previous post, Pumpkin Apple Purée Recipe:
I like to make a fairly large amount of baby food and freeze the rest in ice cube trays.

It's convenient since each cube is one ounce of food. You just take out however much you need the night before and let it thaw in the refrigerator until it's yum-yum time.

Ice cube tray tip: If you're having trouble getting the frozen cubes out of the tray, run warm water along the back for a few seconds. Then they'll pop right out.


Side Note for Turkey Season
While checking to see if cranberries were safe for babies to eat, I came upon a web article from Parents Magazine, Holiday Foods Babies Can Eat Too. It had some great food recommendations as well as a few recipes for babies.

Holiday Foods Babies Can Eat Too, Parents Magazine

Tips to Soothe That Newborn Baby

I have a co-worker who was due this month with her first little baby. As this wonderful lady had been getting bigger and bigger with baby over the past few months, I tried to pass along any tips or product recommendations that I could think of since my first-time baby experience was relatively fresh in my mind.

Of all of the subjects that we discussed, the best tip I could possibly offer a new parent is how to soothe a fussy baby.

Why You Should Love Dr. Harvey Karp
Soothing a fussy baby is something every first-time mother and father are going to want to learn quickly. I definitely recommend listening to the expert on the subject, Dr. Harvey Karp.

Dr. Harvey Karp, your new best friend
image from wikipedia

To me, his look is a bit stuck in the 90s, but his advice and methods are current and the best ones I've ever used.

I haven't read the book of the same name, but I watched the DVD called The Happiest Baby on the Block, and it is genius. Spread the word to every expecting mother you know. She'll thank you for it. In fact, if you're wondering what to get for a baby shower that's not too pricey but super useful, then I highly recommend the DVD.

A great baby shower gift idea

GET THE INFO. FOR FREE: Even without the book or DVD, you could get away with the points I've outlined here. There is also a short video from WebMD of Dr. Karp highlighting these same points. And a description of why these methods work from babycenter.com.

Velcro swaddle
image from Amazon

The Five S's:

1. Swaddling
• You can wrap baby in a swaddling blanket (see how-to video here)
• Some swaddles come with zippers or velcro to make it a little easier; I recommend the velcro (this was one we had and liked) since it is easy to snuggly adjust based on baby's size as he or she grows
2. Side/stomach position
• This is for soothing, not for sleeping—sleeping should always be done on back
3. Shushing
• This is basically any loud white noise, so you could shush in baby's ear or use a white noise machine of your choice
• Relax Melodies is a free app available for Android and iPhone that has many white noise sounds and a customizable timer to shut itself off at the end of the countdown (I love to use it myself too when I have a little trouble getting to sleep)
4. Swinging
• Any rhythmic motion can be good whether it's your arms, a rocker or an automatic swing

• 

  Fisher-Price swing, image from Amazon

  My husband and I were super grateful to have an automatic swing like the Fisher-Price Snugabunny Cradle 'N Swing. The product description from the link will give you all the information you need, but I'll say that my favorite features were the multiple swing speeds, the mirror in the center of the mobile above baby, the option to swing side-to-side or head-to-toe and that the music/sounds and swinging will shut off automatically after a while
5. Sucking
• A pacifier or your own clean finger can help in a pinch

My daughter tried to help Mommy out by offering her fussy brother a finger after pacifier fell out of his mouth,
from November 2014 when they were only a few weeks old