S'mores' Puffs - I Will Create Food!

We are avid campers and, by proxy, devotees of a good s'more.  Rather than yearn for the sweet, gooey goodness during the cold and rainy winter months, we create these puff pastry versions to tide us over.  

You will need:

1 package of puff pasty dough - you can generally find this in the frozen food section near the pies and frozen fruit.

1 jar of Marshmallow Fluff 

1 8 oz tub of cream cheese

1 egg 

1 package of your S'more chocolate of choice  (we prefer peanut butter cups or Kitkats to plain chocolate)

You will also need a cookie sheet, pastry brush, pizza cutter and parchment paper. 

Preheat your oven to 375°

Crack you egg into a bowl and add a few teaspoons of water. 

Whisk the eggs and water together to make an egg wash.  

Next line your cookie sheet with the parchment paper to keep the puffs from sticking.

Lay out your puff pastry dough and cut it into 3 even strips.

Add your chocolate of choice.  

Center them on half of the puff pastry strip, making sure there is room to seal the edges. 

Brush the edges with the egg wash to help the seal stick. 

Fold the pastry strip over the chocolate and line up the edges. 

Use a fork to press the edges and make sure the chocolate stays inside. 

Brush the pastry with the egg wash to get a nice golden brown finish during baking. 

Once all of your pastries are assembled, pop them in the oven for 20-25 minutes depending on how golden you like them. 

Now combine your marshmallow fluff and cream cheese.  

Mixing them together until you have a nice smooth frosting. 

Take the pastries out and let them cool for a few minutes. 

Add your frosting and enjoy!  

Adding crushed graham crackers or using a kitchen torch to slightly brown the frosting adds to the campfire s'more taste, but they generally don't last long enough around here to take the extra steps. 

Lego Americana Roadshow - If You Build It

We love Legos!  We love them to the point of surrendering a chunk of our house to storage and creation areas and have Lego Minifigs proudly displayed on our walls.  We also have an affinity for  history and architecture. So when we heard that the Lego Americana Roadshow was coming to Alderwood Mall, we knew we had to go.

The Lego Americana Roadshow is a traveling exhibit of American monuments that travels the country to wow crowds and sneaks in a bit of history to boot (including a life-size Liberty Bell!)

 The structures are incredibly detailed with even the smallest features represented in Legoes.   The exhibit is free and will be at the Alderwood Mall through October 30th.

Archie Mcphee - Wonderfully Weird

Anytime we are in the Wallingford neighborhood, we are tempted to go to Archie McPhee. Established in 1983, Archie McPhee has been entertaining shoppers with storefronts in Fremont, Ballard and now in Wallingford.  The colorful storefront only hints at the spectacular finds inside.

Plus anthropomorphic Bacon!

The store is a smorgasbord for the senses.  Some of favorites are:

The mass variety of mints (everything from banana to absinthe, with unflavored available for your nihilist friends and brain flavored to slow down the zombies.);

Band-aids of every size and style; 

Costume basics such as mustaches, hats and embelishments; 

the plethora of hand accessories;
 

Coffee cups that strike from the deep;

The Wallingford Beast;

Caution tape for every occasion;

Soap opera music boxes;

and amazing masks such as this Banana Slug.  

Whomever you may be shopping for, Archie McPhee probably has what you are looking for.... and some things you didn't know you needed. 

8-bit Fuse Beads - The Family That Creates Together

Our family has many passions: the outdoors, music, food, travel... but creating and pop culture near the top of the list.  So when my boys pulled out the fuse beads we could see an idea forming. 
If you are unfamiliar with fuse beads, they are small beads in all colors that can be melted together with an iron. (We like the Perler brand as they melt evenly and they offer an amazing array of colors)  Generally, you would use a special pegboard to lay out the design you are working towards before you iron them.   Perler's square boards also have a simple way of interlocking that allows for you to create much larger images. 

Our youngest was planning several fuse bead recreations of 8-bit video game art 

Power Up?

Apparently power-up mushrooms are big Charmander Fans

while our oldest was planning something more ambitious. 

After doing a bit of research, he started to adapt an image of  the Pokemon Snorlax using cross-stitch methodology. After one night the outline started to solidify.

The process was a study in patience as the outline slowly started to fill in.

It was truly amazing to watch as the beginning shapes filled with various colors and gradients, giving the piece form and texture. 

Once he was finished with placing all of the fuse beads, we ironed it very carefully. 

We covered Snorlax with parchment paper and, using an iron on it's medium setting, we carefully moved it over the entire piece to ensure each bead was attached to its neighbor. 

When we were done, we flipped him over and ironed the other side as well, to give him some stability. 

The completed art is awesome!  Just need to fit it in a frame. 

We now have a permanent Pokemon to join our sci-fi fantasy art wall. 

If you want to try it for yourself, Amazon has a great inexpensive starter kit. 

Treasure Hunting! - Finders Keepers @ Lincoln City, OR

Floats Photo from www.visittheoregoncoast.com

Our family loves a good treasure hunt.  Whether it's keeping an eye on the ground on our walks for discarded change or searching out hidden treasure in Geocaches, we love the thrill of hunt.  So when we heard about Finders Keepers in Lincoln City, OR we were immediately intrigued.  

Finders Keepers is an annual event along the 7+ miles of beaches that has over 3000 hand blown glass floats and other items hidden for the public to find.  Glass float hunting was a popular hobby up until a decade or so ago.  Japanese fishing boats previously used hand blown glass floats to float their nets.  During storms, and through wear and tear, the floats would come loose and people would find them along the coast.  As fishing boats turned more and more to plastic buoys, floats became harder to come by. 

As a nod to the past, Lincoln City sponsored the first Finders Keepers in 1999.  Growing to the more than 3000 glass items that will be hidden from October to Memorial Day, Lincoln City has created the perfect excuse to visit the coast out of the traditional tourist season.  So we will be heading to Oregon at some point this winter to try our luck...You should head to the beach too! 

Reese's Pringles - I Will Create Food!

There are some flavors that weren't meant to go together: cotton candy and broccoli, salmon and ketchup, blue cheese and ice cream.  There are however some flavors that you wouldn't have initially combined, but, once together, create something special. We stumbled upon this combination when we were making chocolates one day and had leftover melted chocolate.  It led us to try just about everything enrobed in chocolate.  Most combinations ranged from acceptable to "probably not the best idea".  This combination was everything we wanted the other trials to be: sweet, salty, crunchy, chocolatey. Dubbed Reese's Pringles by our oldest, they have been one of our go-to treats ever since. 

You will need:

Ridged Potato Chips

Peanut Butter (we use natural just to make it a bit healthier)

Semi-sweet chocolate-melted

Start by lining a cookie sheet with parchment paper. It'll stop the treats from sticking. 

Next dip the chips in the peanut butter. Don't cover the entire chip, you want a spot to hold them during the chocolate step. 

When your cookie sheet is full, put them in the freezer for a few minutes to make it easier to dip them in chocolate. 

Once the peanut butter has hardened up a bit, dunk them in the chocolate. 

And off they go back to the freezer. 

Give them about 10 minutes or so and you can give them a try.  Just don't wait too long, they don't last long!