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MAKE MONEY WITH LOCAL AD LINK FOR YOUR AREA - http://javashops.blogspot.com/feeds/4940973864920143619/comments/default

[-] The cutest horse collectible card game for little girls.

If you're interested in winning a set of the Bella Sara trading cards, please go HERE and enter the giveaway.

I will randomly pick two winners on April 1st. Good Luck!


For the grown ups, I have a copy of Amy Dickinson's memoirs "The Mighty Queens of Freeville" to giveaway. Go and read the review here and leave me a comment.

I will also randomly pick a winner April 1st. Good Luck!

Giveaways! - http://familycorner.blogspot.com/feeds/7404429768276183819/comments/default

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I'm sure as a parent and having at one point in time, been kids ourselves, we're all aware of collectible cards right?

But what if I were to tell you that there is one specifically made for girls? One that is so adorable and so filled with the cutest horses EVER, that you will wonder how you made it so long without it.


That's what I want to share with you today. Jasmine first got these cards when they were sent to me last year to try. I handed them to her and she looked at them and immediately fell in love, she was even more excited because they have an online website filled with adorable horses and adventures, printables etc.

If you have young girls around, this is the perfect toy for them. Bella Sara just came out with 2 new products.

Bella Sara Miniature Series 1 Collection, you actually get to collect figurines of the Bella Sara Horses. They are ADORABLE and so tiny. Keep in mind they are for ages 5+.

Bella Sara Treasures. Ok, now this one Jasmine was going crazy about. They are playing cards BUT get this, they come with codes, stickers or tattoos AND you can play online with each corresponding code. Jasmine said that with the code on each card she could access a different area of the website.

I am telling you, she spent about two hours glued to the computer, playing with the different horses and exploring different areas. When she was done, she actually called her best friend in Virginia and told her all about Bella Sara.

Ok, so now that I've told you about it, I will tell you that the wonderful people at Bella Sara are offering two sets.




All you have to do, is leave me a comment, make sure you have an email account listed where I can reach you if you win, and tell me which of these sets you think your daughter would like the most. Easy as that. I will random generate two winners on April 1st!

Bella Sara! - http://familycorner.blogspot.com/feeds/1143289753479006497/comments/default

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Pork Tenderloin with a Honey Mustard Sauce - http://fortheloveofcooking-recipes.blogspot.com/feeds/2302763339826578062/comments/default

[-] We leave tomorrow for the 20+ hour drive back home to Minneapolis - woo! I think Gus will be the happiest... he isn't used to being cooped up in a small hotel room for this long. Gus isn't the biggest car-ride fan either, but he loves to bury himself in heaps of blankets and just hang out in his bed right behind us.

It will be nice to be "home", but I am certainly going to miss the warmth down here! While it did start as a cold, snowy mess when we initially arrived, it quickly warmed up to the 60's and 70's, with brilliant blue skies that stretched as far as the eye can see - we will both be missing that! It will probably take us a couple days to get settled in and get the house stocked back up... for the first time in a long time, I think the refrigerator will be quite bare! In the mean time, I have a snazzy pancake recipe to share!

We probably don't have breakfast-for-dinner nights nearly as often as I (or Jeff) would like, but since I also don't want to ruin the treat factor by doing them too often, I spread them out as long as I can stand it. Being that we were about to leave for Charlotte, I didn't know when the next time we'd be able to dish up homemade pancakes, which was enough cause for me to try out these Carrot Cake Pancakes recently!

For a solid starting point to the batter, we used a combination all-purpose flour, lighter whole-wheat pastry flour and crunchy toasted walnuts. Cinnamon is the first spice that comes to mind when I think of carrot cake, which is certainly included in these pancakes, but we've also tried other cakes that had an appealing complexity to them, thanks to a variety of spices used. If that draws you in, you'll find that same robustness here by also tossing freshly grated nutmeg, cloves and ginger right in with the dry ingredients.

You'll find the usual suspects to moisten the above mixture - tangy buttermilk, brown sugar, a couple eggs, a splash of your best vanilla and to round the ingredients out, just a bit of canola oil. These wouldn't be carrot cake pancakes without the carrots, but how you prepare them, in my opinion, will be the key to how these turn out. Since the batter takes just minutes to cook through, the carrot pieces cannot be very large or you'll be left with uninviting raw carrot bits. I tried using the shredding blade of the food processor to make short work of them, but after doing half a carrot, I thought the pieces were still a bit too bulky.

I almost reached for the box grater, which probably would have worked, but then remembered I had a microplane-like hand grater in the drawer. Using that gave us shreds that were fine, yet not wet or mushy - the one I have is a bit coarser than one you'd use to zest a lemon with. Once the carrots were folded in, the batter was fairly thick and gooey - when you start spooning the batter onto the buttered griddle, be sure to give the mounts a gentle nudge to help them spread out a bit. Because there was only two of us eating, we served our portions directly from the final batch out from the pan. However, if you need to keep them warm until you can get all of the batter used, set the pancakes on a wire rack as they come off and place them in the oven, heated as low as it can go until you are ready to eat.

You could go all out and take these over-the-top by whipping up a lightly sweetened cream cheese spread to smear over each golden flapjack, but because I didn't want to go too crazy for dinner, a dollop of honey butter worked out to be an enticing compromise! I knew these were a winner for us when Jeff said "I can't believe there are carrots in these! I mean, I can taste the sweetness of them in there, but if I was a kid who didn't like carrots, I would still love these!". We did have a few leftover, but those were quickly devoured the next morning - a quick stint in the toaster oven was just enough to warm them back up.



Carrot Cake Pancakes... - http://desertculinary.blogspot.com/feeds/5928275132404242953/comments/default

[-] So I took a hiatus from this post, but I'm back!

Tonight's menu is......

• Crock pot hot beef on wheat buns (see previous post)
• Baked potatoes
• salad

What's for dinner 3/11/10 - http://nouveaucuisinier.blogspot.com/feeds/6423835978576097510/comments/default

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Last weekend, we did a FABULOUS wedding at the Curtis Hotel in Downtown Denver. I've done many, many weddings seen many, many styles and this was truly one of my favorites. The bride and groom were the most laid-back, fun and COOL people I've ever met. I turned to Sarah haflway through the delivery and said: "Seriously, I really want to GO to this wedding. It seems like it's going to be one hell of a party."



The Curtis is a truly funky hotel in Downtown Denver. It's very retro-chic. The reception room looks out onto a huge piece of art-graffitti. The colors are oranges, blues and greens. The floors are named for children's games "Floor 3, Marco Polo!" the elevator voice says, and there are vintage movie posters around.

Basically, everything is funky-cool. First, for the pro-pictures, from Moodeous Photography by Kristen Rowe. (These are also above) She did a great job of capturing the feel of the wedding:




Look at these shoes! And that dress!



And now for my "totally crappy-by-comparison" pictures:



The bride looked..incredible. Her dress looked like it was made of some sort of..crinkly paper - it was totally original, not like anything I've ever seen before. The entire thing hugged her curves and then mermaided (that would be an original Colleen word right there) out at the bottom. She had on the glitter-deco shoes, and a sweet square black fur wrapped that draped around her shoulders.
She was cool. Cool in that way that I will never be: Flawless, effortlessly cool. You know she loves film noir and hole in the wall places to eat and speaks a random language and listens to bands we will never hear of. She is the cool we all try to be.

Her flowers were eggplant mini-callas, jade and orange roses with a black wrap. The entire bouquet was...funky candy. I loved it, even though the picture is not great. (This was my old camera's last hurrah):



The ceremony site was in a small room above the reception venue. They got married in front of hundreds of candles, flanked on both sides with white manzinita braches, decked with hanging crystals.



Also, the bathrooms were pretty sweet:



The reception room was lit in orange and purple. Here is a GREAT lesson for all you brides out there in sculpting your wedding flowers around the location that you are getting married. I've had brides that have huge diva pink bouquets in an African Garden that is full of reds and oranges. Likewise, I've had brides have a huge romantic nosegays in a warehouse. Please trust me: You need to take your location in mind when thinking about wedding details.
This bride did it perfectly, seeing that the room would be oranges and purples, opted for orange, purple, and green flowers. She also wanted the flowers to have a funky feeling like the hotel - and they were. Good job bride!



Her centerpieces were square black vases with orange roses, eggplant mini-callas and green hydrangea. They were very closed edged and contemporary shaped.



My friend Rachel from Intricate Icings (Who is going to be on Food Network Challenge soon! Awesome!) did the cake. It was perfect as always.



We laid the toss beside the cake....



And Ran out the Door. Run Sarah Run!



The Curtis Wedding - http://ranunculusadventure.blogspot.com/feeds/5804714128697762432/comments/default

[-] Remember Bitter Herb? – Forward.com


This is a great blog for those of us who celebrate Passover. Although this year, our daughter and grandson, age 3,are visiting and it's our 29th anniversary-we're going with that as the main focus and only using the hide-the-matzoh part.

Remember Bitter Herb? – Forward.com - http://www.forward.com/articles/126546/

[-] "Four directors, including a company co-founder, have resigned from the board of debt-ridden Planet Organic Health Corp., the company said Tuesday.

Executive vice-president Darren Krissie announced co-founder Mark Craft, Michael Arougheti, Daniel Katz and David Heighington have resigned.

Their departure leaves Krissie, Ian Newton and Brent Knudsen as the current board of directors. In a statement, Krissie gave no reason for the resignations."

Read the article

Planet Organic loses majority of board - http://www.blogger.com/feeds/356321866308779698/posts/default/4364454989646493096

[-] There's a monthly neighborhood playgroup that Colton and I attend and we are supposed to bring a snack to share with everyone. As usual, I completely forgot until this morning about the snack part and to make it worse, it was supposed to be a green snack! Aside from some cucumbers, frozen peas, and 2 celery stalks, I had nothing else green on hand. I got the creative juices flowing and thought about making some sort of flavored popcorn that is green since I always have lots of popcorn around here. It turned out awesome and wish there had been more leftover so I could have eaten it all!

CINNAMON POPCORN

• 1 bag popcorn (I'd go with the lowfat kind since you'll be adding more butter to it)
• 1/2 stick of butter
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 2 heaping teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Green sugar sprinkles (optional for St. Patricks Day!)

Pop the popcorn in the microwave. Melt the butter in a saucepan and then add the sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. While that is all melting and coming to a boil, put the popcorn in a large bowl. Once the sugar mixture is boiling, take it off and pour if over the popcorn. Stir the popcorn until everything is mixed.

You can eat it like this if you'd like (make sure it's cooled down) and it would be gooey and delicious. If you want it hard and delicious (I think this is the best route if you're sharing) then bake it on a cookie sheet in the oven at 250 degrees for about 20 minutes. Whichever method you'd like to go with, sprinkle with the sugar sprinkles at the end!

Cinnamon Popcorn - http://recipehunterlisa.blogspot.com/feeds/8911595124910370049/comments/default