Peepshi...or in layman's terms Peeps Sushi

We are big time Sushi fans in this household!  My heart skipped a beat last year when I ran across the wonderful creation of Peeps Sushi at SeriousEats.com but it was too late to make them.  Peeps tortured me throughout the year as we went from Halloween to Christmas and then to Valentine's Day but I held Peeps Sushi dear to my heart waiting, anticipating for Easter time!  Mr. Rogers is a superior rice krispie treat maker so together we burned the midnight oil creating these for the kids Easter baskets this Sunday.

We HAD to sample some and to our surprise they were actually quite tasty!

(Of course, we only had kid chopsticks)

Hmmm, hopefully the kids won't notice the bite....errr, we'll give that one to Maggie!

Super easy to make and so much fun to eat...or just look at!  It took us about two hours and a double recipe of marshmallow treats, three packages of Peeps and a box of fruit by the foot, this yielded approx three dozen.  Here are some tricks that helped.  First, we spread wax paper and buttered it, we then placed the marshmallow rice krispies on right side of the wax paper using the left side to fold over and then rolled out flat with a rolling pin.  Once they cooled down a bit (20 min.), I used that left side of the buttered wax paper to help me roll and shape the sushi.  A single chop from a large knife did the trick, but don't saw through, think like a Sushi Chef!  The last thing that I wish we had done was diversify our Peeps and fruit by the foot selection.  We should have gotten green fruit by the foot in addition to the red and green Peeps for avocado and wasabi.  I like the orange and purple used in the original recipe....the colorblind Mr. Rogers picked out the Peeps we used so what can I say!

A certain special birthday boy....

 ....close to my heart got to take twenty-two of these little guys to school for his birthday.  It hurt that a more historical theme was not selected [wink, wink] but Lincoln really wanted Toy Story...so I threw in one of our handmade Wooden Peg Presidents in the pictures for good measure!  Lincoln is so easy going and doesn't really ever want much, so it was with pure delight that these cupcakes were Toy-Story'd up for him on his special day!

The cupcake recipe are these wonderful Colorburst Cupcakes from Our Best Bites.  Each cupcake had these fabulous party circles from SillyMeDesigns and the super cute Yellow Cupcake Liners are from SweetEstelle

Singin' In The Rain

We are in the thralls of spring, that's for sure.  Rain one day, hail the next day, then it's time to pull out the shorts only to find yourself busting out the rain coat the next day.  Mother nature was really cruel because after weeks of rain she gave us a week in the high seventies/low eighties and the kids were relishing the long days full of riding bikes and shooting hoops.  It was just a teaser!  We're back inside but they've already had a taste of the good life and have shed their contentment of the winter table activities like play-doh and drawing.  So, we've turned to baking and we snuck these pictures in after a morning of rain.  These cookies are delicious and we've been dying them different spring colors.

Always impressed by my neighbor's amazing sugar cookies it was magical upon securing the Best Rolled Sugar Cookie Recipe and successfully duplicating it!  Mmmmm, like manna from heaven!  My go-to cookie recipe can be found here but this is by far the recipe for my fellow cookie conesuier.  More time consuming but just perfection to the palette.  This recipe is best when the dough can chill overnight but it is easy to roll out, color (above: Wilton's golden yellow), use with cookie cutters and a speedy bake time.