Saving Green Birthday Parties

For my kiddos birthday parties, I utilized some awesome decor ideas I had found on Pinterest and online that saved me some green. 

I used inexpensive cardstock, scrapbook paper and ribbon and twine to make birthday banners. I printed out the letters on my computer and cut them out to save even more money, but you could find cheap chip letters at Michaels or Hobby Lobby. Check out the tutorial here.

For Liesl's party, I created a pretty, girly background with three plastic tablecloths. (Here's that tutorial) I also made my own tissue paper pom poms. (Tutorial here) 

For the table and other decor, I ended up choosing themes where I had a lot of the toys/props I could use. For Gavin's barnyard party, I used all his tractors, farm animals, etc. For Liesl's My Little Pony party, we pulled out all her ponies to use as table decor. 

 All in all, both parties turned out great. Clean food and green saving decor made for happy guests, very happy birthday boy and girl and a happy Momma :)

Birthday Party Eating Clean-Style

My kiddos birthdays are less than a month apart, so this year, to make it easier on our out-of-town family and friends, I decided to hold both parties on the same day, back-to-back. By the end of the weekend, I was totally exhausted, but it ended up being a great day! In keeping with the clean eating lifestyle we've adapted, I decided to make both parties as clean as possible.

For Gavin's bday party, I did a barnyard theme and served Hen House Chicken Sandwiches, Dairy Barn Mac and Cheese, Garden Patch Veggies and Animal Feed Chips and Pretzels. Clever names huh? :) For dessert, we had clean cupcakes with all-natural frosting. (Check out the recipe here. They were the same cupcakes I made for the mine and the hubby's birthdays) Minus the pretzels and slider buns, everything was all-natural, clean and delicious :) Check out all the recipes below:

Chicken Sandwiches
4 large cans of chunk chicken (double check the ingredients to make sure it's just chicken and water, with no preservatives)
Equivalent of 2 cans of cream of chicken (see recipe here)
1 sleeve of crackers (saltine, tollhouse, etc) adding more if too runny

Mix everything together in crockpot and cook on low for 1-2 hours before serving.
Mac and Cheese
Adapted from Kitchen Treaty

8 oz. (1/2 pound or about 1¾ cups) macaroni or other medium tubular pasta (like penne or conchiglie) (I found that Trader Joe's has the best prices on organic, all-natural pasta...$1 for a pound!)
3 tablespoons butter
¼ cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon dry mustard
¼ teaspoon black pepper
2½ cups 2% milk
3 cups grated medium cheddar cheese or whatever cheese you have on hand

Boil the pasta until al dente, according to package directions. Drain and rinse with cool water to stop the cooking, and return to the pan you boiled it in. Set aside. (Mix in a little butter to keep the noodles from sticking if it’s going to be awhile before you make the sauce)
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Over medium heat, melt the butter.
Add the flour, salt, dry mustard, pepper, and ⅛ teaspoon smoked paprika. Stir constantly over medium heat for about three minutes.
Stir in the milk.
Keeping on medium heat, whisk constantly for about 10 minutes, until the sauce thickens.
Remove from heat, and stir in 2 cups of the cheese, stirring until melted.
Pour the cheese sauce over the noodles and toss gently until all noodles are covered.
Add half the noodles to a two quart casserole dish.
Sprinkle on half the cheese.
Add the rest of the noodles.
Sprinkle on the rest of the cheese, and dust lightly with the smoked paprika.
Bake for about 25-30 minutes, until it starts getting a slightly dry and a tiny bit brown on top. 





Veggie Tray
I just cut up fresh green and yellow peppers from our garden, carrots from our garden, celery and broccoli and served with hummus and all-natural ranch dressing. 

Happy Birthday - Part Duex

Tonight was the continuation of our birthday celebration dinners and I cooked my hubby his birthday dinner. I made maple-glazed salmon, twice-baked potatoes and grilled asparagus. For dessert, we had bourbon brown butter brownies. Yummo!!! And, every single thing we had was all-natural, except for the hollandaise sauce. I've made my own hollandaise sauce before and it's just not worth it time and price-wise. 

Maple-Glazed Salmon
1 teaspoons paprika
½ teaspoon chili powder
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon sea or kosher salt
4 (6-ounce) salmon fillets
2 tablespoon maple syrup

Prepare grill, heating to medium. Combine first 5 ingredients. Sprinkle fish with salt; rub with paprika mixture. Place fish on grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 7 minutes. Drizzle fish with syrup; grill 1 minute or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork. 




Bourbon & Brown Butter Brownies
(makes 16 brownies)
250g good quality bittersweet chocolate (if you want them to be less gooey/fudgy then only use 175g)
100g butter
120ml (about 1/2 cup) bourbon
2 eggs
3 tbsp dutch process cocoa powder, sifted
75g (about 1/2 cup) plain flour
190g (about 3/4 cup) sugar

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Grease very well and line the bottom and two long sides of a 20x30cm slice/brownie tin (can be substituted with a 20cm square cake tin but you may have to bake it slightly longer as it will be thicker). Let the baking paper hang over the long edges, it will make it easier to lift brownie out later. Prepare the brown butter; place butter in a small saucepan on low heat until it melts, continue to stir over low heat but keep a close eye on it, as it begins to bubble and the milk solids separate and settle at the bottom of the pan. Stir it frequently at this point, so that the milk solids do not settle at the bottom of the pan for too long and burn. Continue until the mixture turns brown and smells nutty but take care not to leave it for too long or it will taste burnt. Remove from the heat.

Break up chocolate into small pieces place in a heatproof bowl. Heat over a saucepan of boiling water, or very carefully in 30 sec bursts in the microwave. Stir and set aside to cool for a few minutes, then add the brown butter and stir to combine. Sift cocoa powder, sugar and flour into a large mixing bowl. Add melted ingredients, bourbon and eggs to the dry mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until just combined. Take care not to overmix or the brownies will be tough. Pour into prepared tin.

Bake for about 25 mins, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out with a few moist crumbs attached (start checking on it from the 20 minute mark, it is better to undercook it and have to return it to the oven later than to overcook it and let it go dry). Remove from the oven and place tin on a wire rack. Cool completely in tin before removing and cutting into 16 pieces. Can be stored overnight in an airtight container (they actually taste best the day after).

Happy Birthday - Part 1

Sorry for the lack of blogging in the last few days...my hubby and I both celebrated our 30th birthdays this weekend. Our birthday celebrations were a good combination of all-natural and definitely not-so-natural fare. We treated ourselves to many of our favorite foods and overall had a great time. 

The morning started out right (but not so natural!) with Krispy Kremes and a Starbucks hot chocolate. Yummo!

For dinner, my DH made me some of my favorite foods, including Juicy Lucy hamburgers, cheesy hashbrowns and sangria. And for dessert, oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies :) All-natural and oh-so-good! Just goes to prove that clean doesn't = healthy, but again, it's all about moderation!







 
I did manage to find some excellent all-natural salad dressing at Kroger yesterday. It's Marzetti's Simply Dressed and not only is it all-natural, it's also a great price! The dressing was on sale 2 for $5 and I had two $1 off coupons, so they ended up being $1.50 each. Great deal!!