cooking for the ones we love

What holiday at our house doesn't revolve around food? I can't think of any. Why should Valentine's Day be any different?

The kids were busy all weekend picking out the perfect Valentine cards for their friends at school...



Banks picked Phineas and Ferb with Valentine Dots. Mary Reese chose Peace sign themed cards complete with a tattoo and some Valentine Hershey Kisses. Owen didn't go to school today...so he did not participate!

I spent a good chunk of Sunday in the kitchen baking for all the ones we love.

Mary Reese took sprinkled heart shaped sugar cookies to school for her class to share.

I made cheese straws for the teacher hospitality "room" at Banks' school.

Then I made about 10 recipes of this to share with everyone else...



fleur de sel caramels

I made my first batch on New Year's and everyone has been hooked since. It seemed like the natural treat to send all our teachers and friends.

I actually found this fleur de sel salt at one of the "heathly grocery stores" in the neighboring town. It was not on the regular spice aisle but in a little specialty spice section near the specialty coffee. It was on the bottom shelf, so you kind of had to dig to find it. The texture is nothing like plain old table salt or sea salt [even though it is a type of sea salt]. The bottle says "the caviar of salt at your fine dining table". It cost a pretty penny but the recipe only calls for 1 teaspoon.

This is what my refrigerator looked like by Sunday afternoon...



There were bags of caramels tucked in every corner.  We hope everyone enjoyed them. They seem to disappear quickly at our house.

I fixed a special breakfast for everyone this morning...



pink heart shaped pancakes

[I really wanted some more donuts but a I didn't feel like getting up at 4 am on a school morning to get those going. We have to reserve those for non-school mornings.]

I just greased my cookie cutters with a little cooking spray before I poured in a thin layer of my yeast pancake batter tinted with pink coloring...



Once they were set, I removed the cookie cutters and flipped.  Mary Reese has already requested them again for breakfast in the morning.

I usually try to cook us a "special" meal for tonight, but I was tired. I opted for...



Easy Peasy Valentiney Beefy Enchiladas. Hey...at least I served them on a Valentine plate!

I did give them a special treat for dessert. Any guesses?



Bananas Foster

My kids think the flame aspect of the dessert is way cool.



It was delicious and delightful as always!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day with the ones they love!