Food Love :)

This post is a bit late. i spent much of the week having fun with the valentines theme, but then ended up with two sick kiddoes, and a dental emergency. So i just didn't get it put together in time.
i've seen a lot of folks complaining about the 'commercialization' of Valentine's day, and there is absolutely no reason it has to be commercial. We had a blast with Valentine's day crafts/themes all week, gave handmade gifts and made lots of yummy treats.

My son handmade his class valentines. We did give candy too, but we didn't fall for any of special Valentine's themed/packaged goodies. Instead we made these cute little Mice hugs to go with them.


These are made from two hugs with a paper heart between them. The eyes and nose are just cut from paper scraps. Those googly eyes would have been cute, but we didn't have any. Very simple and cute craft. The kids all loved them.

i made homemade baked donuts this week using this recipe. i added about 3/4 cup of chopped cherries, so they were pink inside. :)

i came across a bunch of fun 'heart themed' snacks and foods and wanted to share them. We made heart apple chips after seeing a tutorial on Chalk in my pocket (fabulous blog!) These turned out wonderful, and my kids devoured them.

i just happened to have this really basic heart cookie cutter, that worked perfectly for cutting the apples into hearts and removing the core all at once. There was very little waste. The centers went into the compost, and the apple skins when to the goats. These are super easy to make, dip the apples in a little lemon/water to keep them from browning and then bake them at around 250 for an hour or so until they are crispy. Of course if you have a food dehydrator, that would work perfect too. Super easy and fun snack, and my boy enjoyed finding them in his lunch this week.
i made magic window cookies. Sage helped to put the candies in the centers. We used a roll of cherry lifesavers.

i found this amazing looking recipe for Raspberry Cream cheese Heart tarts and had to try them. My picture is before they were baked and frosted, because my glaze job was NOT pretty at all. hee hee. i used frozen (thawed) strawberries instead of raspberries. These were okay, but not quite a good as i was expecting. Mine ended up puffing up and filling with air and there just didn't seem to be quite enough filling in them. i think i just need to play around with the filling a bit, and try them again. i was thinking that if i used raspberry jam, they would be very similar to poptarts. :)

For dinner on Valentine's day i made everyone's favorite! Heart shaped pizza! i made mini pizzas for the kids. My boy likes mushroom and black olive, and my girl only likes cheese.

My husband and i shared this one, it's mushroom, spinach, olive and red pepper.

The kids received handmade Valentines and gifts as well.
We definitely don't need a day reserved to show our loved ones we care about them, but it's a good excuse to make some sweet treats and get creative.


Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end. ~Author Unknown