Po' Sack and Wing Slap

   Well, I realized that most of my posts so far have been about our kiddos or about crafts or food, which is funny, since this blog is called "The John and Carol Show."  It is authored by me (though John has said he may post very occasionally), and kids, crafts and food are a lot of what I do.  However, John is my favorite person in the world, and I love the time after the kids go down when we get to hang out together.



   Last night we decided we would try to recreate one of our all-time favorite desserts.  The Chocolate Sack from SO restaurant here in Little Rock.  If you know me well or have ever visited us here in the Rock, then you have probably heard mention of or had the opportunity to sample this delicious treat.  It is SO good.  (Yes, I chuckle to myself every time I say this, since it is the name of the restaurant it comes from.  Never gets old.  To me.)  I regularly think that I can do anything, and I thought making this rather unique dessert would be a snap.  And, we had all the ingredients on hand.  Sadly, it did not turn out as I had envisioned.  We ended up with a bowl full of stuff, instead of the refined Sack, and we dubbed it the Poor Man's Sack, or "Po' Sack" for short.



   I started out by trying to paint the chocolate onto a sack, just like they do at the restaurant.  (I asked one time, because I wanted to try this very thing.)  I did use a bottle dryer to prop it up.  Genius husband's idea.



   After getting it all painted, I put it into the freezer.  It froze well, but when the time came to take the sack out of it, it became a bit of a fiasco.  Or an entire fiasco.  You be the judge.



   Next time I will go out and buy better chocolate that is harder and more conducive to this sort of thing, and make it a much thicker layer of chocolate.  It is apparently a learning process.  We decided not to let this be the end of the dessert, since we still had all of the ingredients.  In fact, when we looked in our pantry, we found that we had multiples of some of the items that we needed.

Why would anyone need this much marshmallow fluff?



   The truth is, I kept buying it to possibly make fondant and kept forgetting that I already had some.  Also, why do we have this many boxes or different kinds of graham crackers?  Another good question.



   We added the other ingredients of ice cream, almond slivers, raspberry sauce and whipped cream and enjoyed our very own Po' Sack.  Still tasted good, though it didn't look pretty.

   Since our kiddos are not really at the age to enjoy the snow yet, we decided to play in it ourselves while they were both tucked soundly into their beds asleep.  I had really wanted to make a snowman, but after realizing that the snow was mostly dry powder, I settled for snow angels.  Plus, it was cold, and I knew the fire was waiting for us inside.  We made our snow angels giving each other a Wing Slap.



   I wanted to take a picture of the angels, so John got on the mailbox.  Wait, that doesn't seem like the most obvious idea to you, either?  I really did appreciate him going the extra mile and reenacting how to make a snow angel.



   From this vantage point, he was able to observe that his snow angel was much bigger than mine.  I think it was the wing span.  Love him.

   I will finish off by posting a picture of something I found in the bathroom this morning.  I feel like I could do an entire series on the things I find.



Tea party with the hair diffuser and kitty valentines?  Yes, please.

Making Valentine's: Lily Edition

   Well, as I type this, there is snow abundantly falling from the sky.  Again.  Really.  I must say, it is gorgeous, and when John gets home, we might even venture out into it.  We shall see.  The crazy thing is, though we are getting lots here, it does not compare to Northwest Arkansas that is already at close to 2 feet.  That is some crazy snow.  Moving on.
   There are several blogs that I love to read and get inspiration from.  One of my favorites is Under the Sycamore, and I saw this post with the cutest little Valentines that she made for her boys' classes.  I love her stuff.  I thought I might be able to modify it a bit to put onto suckers for Lily's party next week.  And so, I present - Making Valentine's: the Lily Edition.



I started by trying to get a cute picture of her to use.  This proved challenging, and I probably took close to 100.  That is the beauty of digital cameras.  I finally got one that I thought might work.



I uploaded it into iPhoto to crop it, turn it to black and white, and clean it up a bit.  Which got me to this.



I uploaded it into Flickr and added the text and speech bubble in Picnik, which got me to this.  (I did come up with the saying myself, and I think it is cute, but definitely not earth-shattering.)



After I had what I liked, I downloaded the picture back to iPhoto, and then I put it into a Word Document, resized it on the page and put multiple on the page.



Then I printed it out.



I then cut them out and used my corner rounder on three of the edges.



Then, I punched holes through the top and bottom with my smaller hole punch.



I put the sucker stick through the holes.



And, viola!  Cute, valentine sucker!  Personalized just for us.

Chicken Florentine Lasagna Recipe: It's good.

Well, the floors are dust bunny free and even Swiffered, which is good.  I drank a teeny bit more Diet Coke at dinner than I should have, so I am wide awake now.  So, here's the recipe, and it is a good one, though a little bit ingredient intensive, but worth the time and energy.  Yum-my.  I got it from one of my best buddies, Jenn - thanks, Jenn!



Ingredients:
6 Lasagna noodles
1 - 10 oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed
2 cups cooked chicken
2 cups shredded cheddar
1/3 cup onion (finely chopped)
1/3 t nutmeg
1 T cornstarch
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1 T soy sauce
1 can cream of mushroom soup
8 oz. sour cream
1 sm jar mushrooms (sliced/drained)
1/3 cup mayo
4 oz. fresh grated parmesan
Butter Pecan topping:
2 T butter
1 cup chopped pecans

Here's a picture of most of them.  At least I warned you.



Cook your noodles.



Drain spinach between paper towels.



Mix together all ingredients, besides the parmesan cheese and the butter and pecans.



Arrange 2 noodles in a lightly greased 11 x 7 dish.



Layer twice.



Make sure your daughter who is nap-dazed doesn't stick her hands in your florentine.



Melt butter over the stove and cooked pecans for about 3 minutes.



Sprinkle the top of your lasagna with parmesan cheese and the butter pecan topping.  Make sure you COVER your lasagna before cooking it at 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes.  Let is stand for 15 minutes before you cut into it.



Enjoy!  I usually double the recipe and make two if I am going through the trouble.

Bunnies: of the Snow and Dust Varieties

Well, as everyone knows, we have had more winter weather, and it seems as if more will be headed our way soon.  I am a lover of snow, but with two kiddos two and under who cannot/won't play in it and a business that dies because of it, I have come to love it a little bit less. Still, I like cute pictures in it.



Today is the day that I have decided I need to really clean my house.  Actually, John so lovingly reminded me that this should happen when he pointed out the fact that there are dust bunnies everywhere.  He was really, really nice about it even offering to help, but that doesn't negate the dreadful dust bunny reality going on here.  I would say that I am pretty good at keeping our house picked up, but actually keeping it clean is another story entirely.  So far, I have cleaned about half of the top floor, but it truly is amazing how much longer it takes to clean the house when you have to keep stopping to feed someone, change someone or love on someone.  This little dust bunny still needs to be cleaned, but I sure got a cute picture of it in all of its dusty glory.



And look who learned how to sit up in their Bumbo!  She loves it!



Later, I plan on posting the recipe for the Chicken Florentine Lasagna that I made last week.  I decided not to include it in a post dominated by dust bunnies.  That would be gross.