Almost Wordless Wednesday

~Please join me over at Cups by Kim where I am presenting a guest post on a good and heathy treat  (Whole Wheat Chocolate Nutella Cookies)~

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~Strawberry Week here at Pamela's Heavenly Treats~

Let's see I made Home-Made Strawberry Ice Cream, Whole Wheat Strawberry Cookies, and today we have Whole Wheat Vanilla StrawberryCupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream Icing and Fresh Picked Strawberries for garnish, and the cupcake liners are from Valentine's Day matches very nicely, with my theme this week.  Thanks for always leaving such nice comments!

Home Made Strawberry Ice Cream

Whole Wheat Strawberry Cookies

Whole Wheat Vanilla Strawberry Cupcakes

ENJOY!

Whole Wheat Strawberry Cookies

This week is strawberry week, let's see how many healthy treats I can make.  I told my kiddies this week every treat I make is going to have strawberries in it, the big boys said that's cool, and the little boys said it's going to be delicious!  They all crack me up with there funny phrases.

Today we have a Whole Wheat Strawberry Cookie, nice and simple, tastes really good.  I know alot of recipes for strawberry cookies are made the easy way with a box of strawberry cake mix, but not here, we make everything from scratch, and with fresh ingredients.  This cookie goes well with a cup of hot tea.  So it's a good cookie to have at a tea brunch.

Ingredients

1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup unsalted butter (softened)

1 cup light brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tbsp buttermilk (homemade)

1 tsp vanilla

10 fresh strawberries, (chopped)

Directions

 

Set oven to 350

Mix wet ingredients together until combined, add in sifted dry ingredients.  Fold in fresh chopped strawberries.  Using a small scooper, drop cookie dough onto parchment paper cookie sheet, don't make them to big because they will spread. Bake for 10 minutes. Transfer to wire rack.

 

ENJOY!

You can find me linking up Here

Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream

As many of you know, it's the kiddies and I on the weekends, hubbie leaves for work on Friday night and comes back Monday morning.  So this past weekend it was such a nice day, I planned a trip to a fellow homeschool mom's family farm  (Godfrey's Farm) to pick strawberries.  This was Jayda's 2nd year going, last year she didn't really know what was going on, but this year she got down and started picking and eating :-)  They were so SWEET and delicious, as you can imagine the kiddies did more eating than adding to the bucket, I had to keep saying, put it in your bucket, and not in your mouth, but we had a good time, and it was nice for me to have my mama time with them.  I have so many pictures to show you.  Our treat is a little different today its not a healthy cupcake or cookie, but it would go good with a healthy treat, and I did make it with fat free milk :-) oh I forget to say it was GOOD.

Ingredients

2 cups heavy cream

2 cups fat free milk

2 tbsp vanilla

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

10 strawberries cut up

a couple for garnish

Directions

In a bowl or your mixer, cream eggs and sugar, then add vanilla, heavy cream, milk and strawberries.  Mix on medium speed until well incorporated.  Get your ice cream maker together, and pour your mixture in and follow your icecream maker directions, but for the Kitchenaid ice cream maker attachment, put it on 6 and let it mix for 20-30 minutes you will have delicious homemade ice cream.

~This week is strawberry week, so be on the lookout for all my healthy strawberry treats~

Enjoy!

You can find me linking up Here

Happy Mother's Day

Have a blessed Mother's Day, a friend of mine sent these to me, and I wanted to share!!
~I will be back tomorrow with wonderful pictures of our strawberry picking trip and a special treat~

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Guest Post / Trading Blogs Day

Hi! I am Pam from Pams Party and Practical Tips.   I am Trading Blogs with Pamela today in a fun blog swap hosted by Serendipity and Spice.   When Pamela and I found out we  would be trading partners it was actually kind of  funny.  We were paired up randomly,  but we already knew each other.  We also share the same first name, and have similar types of blogs.    It was meant to be.


 Since I have a blog that is based on planning parties and practical tips, I thought I would share some of my best budget party planning tips.

When throwing a party on a budget, planning ahead can really save a lot of money.  Once you pick a theme, the best place to start is the dollar store.   They have many party supplies at the fraction of the cost of the party store.  Last year I threw a  "big number" birthday for a friend using only supplies from the dollar store and items I made. I  was way under my given budget.

You can make great goody bags buying items at the dollar store and on clearance.  For my daughter's beach party I bought the bag, flip flops and frisbee for $1 each, the visors for .67 (JoAnns), and the bubbles for only .33.  The girls left with a full reusable  bag of  useful items that were only a total of $4.

Some of the items did double duty.  We decorated the flip flops as our craft, wore our visors while playing in the sun, and used the frisbees as paper plate holders.

Another fun thing for  me is to make as much as I can using items I already have at home.  I make my own pinatas,

party props,

and decorations whenever possible.

Another personal touch is making your own invitations.  If you prefer not to make your own, there are many free printables online, and several nice choices at the dollar store.

 At our parties we always play some sort of pin the tail game.  I make the game out of poster board according to the party theme. This is always a lot of fun. 

I plan my menu as early as I can, so I can start shopping for what I need with coupons.  Food doesn't have to be expensive to be fun.   We often have simple foods like personal pizzas, chips and juice boxes.  You can give them different names to match your theme.    

A big trend right now is the dessert table.  The dollar store has a large variety of candy, candy jars, and display bowls. I made the cupcake stand by gluing together a few dollar store platters and candlesticks.  

Don't compare your budget  party to the fancy, stylized parties online. They are beautiful to look at, but most kids don't care about  fancy.    I know from the almost 30 parties that I have given over the years, kid don't really  pay attention to  all the  details.  They overlook imperfections, so do not stress if things are not perfect.  As long as they have a fun afternoon with their friends, they don't mind if you spent only $50 instead of $500.    

Some of my other must have party tips 

When opening presents, sit the birthday child in a  high seat, and have the others sit on the floor where everyone can see.  

Draw names when giving presents to the birthday child.  This eliminates crying and hurt feelings. 

Have the present-giver pose with the birthday child when opening gifts, and take a photo.  Not only will you have a memento to give away  later, you will have a record of who gave what.  

My biggest tip of all..  Enjoy the Party! 

If you want to see more of these parties and many others, you can find them on my party theme link. 

Thank you so much Pamela for trading blogs with me. It was a lot of fun, and I would love to do it again sometime soon.

Whole Wheat Red Velvet Cookies

~Make your way over to City Corporate to Suburb Mama for her 100 followers giveaway, you will not be disappointed, she has 15 prizes for 15 people worth over $200.00, and my Etsy Shop is in the giveaway, you can pick any two items from my shop, $15.00 value~

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Wow I did it, I made Red Velvet Cookies, I was able to tweak a recipe that I got and make it healthy. One batch made about 30 cookies which was great. The cookies were so moist and soft. I only had one problem the recipe said 375 so I put the oven to that temperature, but that is too hot, so I turned it down to 350 and the next two batches were just right after the 10 minutes.

If you look over the internet or cookbooks, this cookie is make with red velvet cake mix, I wanted to make it from scratch because that is the healthy way to do it. My first time making them they came out perfect, I couldn't believe that I did it. This is a perfect cookie you can eat all year, not just at Valentine or Christmas.

My kiddies loved them, they said "Mama, you can make red velvet cookies too" I thought that was so funny, I told them Mama is going to try to make every cupcake and cookie that I come across HEALTHY.

My little one who is 21 months old, is my cupcake and cookie stealer :-) I had the cookies on the wire rack and I always forget to push it back, and there she is on her tippy toes swiping a cookie, I think that is so cute, she makes my day.

Whole Wheat Red Velvet Cookies

1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour

2 tbsp cocoa

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup unsalted butter (softened)

1 cup light brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tbsp buttermilk (homemade)

2 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp red food flavoring or red food coloring

Set oven to 350

Mix wet ingredients together until combined, add in sifted dry ingredients.

Spook with a small scooper onto parchment paper cookie sheet, don't make them to big because they will spread. Bake for 10 minutes. Transfer to wire rack.

You can leave them as single cookies, or make them into sandwiches with icing in the middle of two cookies (like a macaroon cookie).

Enjoy!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

My two little ones Zachary 5 and Miss Jayda Grace who just turned 2, love to help me in the kitchen, especially when I am baking.  They both love to eat also, when the cookies or cupcakes come out the oven, they are the first ones with there hands out, it's to cute.