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Will You Be My Valentine?
Our good friends Liv and Belle of the kids’ cooking web site Spatulatta.com are back to help us plan the menu for a fabulous, no-boys-allowed Valentine’s Day celebration! Check out their live cooking demonstrations of the following recipes on their site! Plus, check out our FREE Beacon Street Girls Valentines that you can print and make with your BFFs! A fun meal AND a fun craft for Valentine's Day -- how lovely! *Read our chat with Liv & Belle about cooking -- and exploding pies!* Red and White Salad This salad is not only cute -- it's yummy. We added capers because they are heart-shaped, and they give the salad a little zip from the vinegar they're pickled in. You'll need a small heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut the veggies. The one from Spatulatta's Heart in Hand set works really well. Makes 4 salads You'll need: 8 lettuce leaves or packaged mixed greens 1 jicama (hee-kah-ma -- a root vegetable native to Mexico and Central America) 1 sweet red pepper 1/4 cup of sliced red onion - optional 4 tablespoons of capers - optional Adult help Equipment: A sharp knife A cutting board A small heart shaped cookie cutter Kitchen shears or scissors Plates 1. Rinse the lettuce, and let it drain on paper towels while you work on the veggie cut outs. 2. Here's where the adult help comes in. Ask whoever is helping you to peel the jicama and slice it into big flat slices about 1/4 inch thick. 3. While they're at it, have your adult helper core and seed the red pepper, then cut it up into slices that will just fit the cookie cutter. 4. Now you go to work by cutting the jicama and red pepper into heart shapes. The jicama cuts cleanly but the edges of the red pepper hearts might need a little trimming with the kitchen shears. 5. Rip the lettuce into bite-sized pieces and arrange on the plate. 6. Next add your white and red hearts. 7. Sprinkle on the capers. How pretty! ********** Heart-A-Stack Sandwiches The red of the cranberries goes nicely with our Valentines theme. The sandwiches have a slightly sweet but tangy zip. Find a heart-shaped cookie cutter that is large enough to use up most of the bread. The edges of the bread can be torn up and given to the birds. Makes 4 sandwiches You'll need: 8 slices of whole wheat bread 1/3 pound of turkey - deli style or left over Cream cheese 1 can of cranberry sauce - the chunky kind is best 1/3 cup of walnut pieces A little adult help Equipment: A butter knife A large heart shaped cookie cutter Plates A toaster 1. Start by cutting out the heart shapes with the cookie cutter. 2. Lightly toast the bread. This makes it much easier to spread the cream cheese. Remember not to stick anything metal down into the toaster if the bread gets stuck. Chopsticks or a wooden spoon are much better tools for this task. 3. Place the toasted bread on a plate and spread cream cheese about 1/4 of an inch on one side. 4. Spread the cranberry sauce over the cream cheese. 5. Sprinkle on the walnuts. 6. Next cut the turkey with the cookie cutter. Lay that on the second bread heart and close the sandwich for a sweet and tart treat for Valentine’s Day. ********** Hearty Lentil Soup Our Valentine's menu is a hearty soup, salad, and sandwich combo. You can also find other Valentine's Day suggestions in our Recipe Box. Scroll all the way down to the letter "V." There are also fun recipes for a Valentine's Day dinner in the Spatulatta cookbook. Makes 4-6 servings You'll need: 1 bag of lentils 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped 14 ounce can of crushed tomatoes 1 onion - chopped 2 stalks of celery - chopped 3 carrots - chopped 4 tablespoons of olive oil 5 cups of veggie broth 5 cups water Salt and pepper to taste A little adult help Equipment: A large pot with a lid A wooden spoon Hot pads A ladle 1. This is so simple! After you've cut up all the veggies, put everything into the pot. 2. Put the pot on the stove and turn up the heat. 3. When the soup starts to boil, turn the heat down to low and simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour. 4. Ladle out the steaming soup and serve. ********** 3-D Heart Cookies We used our Heart in Heart cookie cutter set for this recipe. You can find a set for your kitchen in our shop. You'll need: 1 1/2 sticks of butter - softened 1 cup of sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract 2 1/2 cups of flour and a little extra for rolling the cookies out 1 teaspoon of baking powder 1 teaspoon of salt Prepared icing in a tub Red or black icing in the little tube Red food coloring - we like the gel kind! Equipment: Measuring cups and spoons A mixer A rubber spatula A flexible metal spatula - the kind you turn pancakes with A large heart-shaped cookie cutter and a smaller heart-shaped cookie cutter that will fit inside it A rolling pin 2-3 cookie sheets Plastic wrap A little adult help 1. Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and "cream" them together. Creaming butter and sugar means to beat them together until they are a light lemon-y color and very smooth. 2. Next, add the eggs and vanilla, then beat again. 3. Now add the 2 1/2 cups of flour, the baking powder, and the salt. Mix it all together. As you mix, the cookie dough will start to get stiff. Make sure you scrape all the flour from the sides of the bowl and mix it in well. 4. Remove 2/3 of the cookie dough from the mixing bowl. Set it aside. 5. Next, you'll color the remaining dough red. Use about 6 drops of red food coloring to start. Add more drops, a few at a time, until you get a bright red dough. 6. From here on, always work with the white dough first, then a red dough so you don't get red into the white dough. Using your hands, form the cookie dough into balls, wrap them in plastic, and put them into the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. 7. When the cookie dough has chilled, take it out of the refrigerator. 8. Turn the oven to 375 degrees. 9. Lay out sheets of plastic wrap on the counter. This will make clean-up a lot easier. 10. Sprinkle a little flour on your rolling pin and on the counter. 11. Starting with the white dough, roll the cookie dough out until it is 1/8 of an inch thick. 12. Dip your cookie cutters into flour and gently shake most of it off. Use the large cutter to make the white hearts and the small cutter to make the red hearts. 13. Lay the hearts out on the cookie sheet one layer thick. Don't stack them up just yet. 14. Bake at 375 degrees for 7-9 minutes or until the cookies are firm but not brown. 15. Take them out of the oven and cool them on the cookie sheet. Be patient! 16. When the cookies are cool, put a dab of icing on the back of each red heart and fasten it to the middle of a white heart. You can write your Valentine's name on the white cookie with red or black icing. ********** For more scrumptious recipes by Liv and Belle and to check out their web casts, visit Spatulatta.com.
you tell us ...
What are your favorite Valentine's Day treats? And did you get some this Valentine's Day?
Adios, 
.
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