funforkids

I went to a block party today at a cousins house.  Each guest was asked to bring a dish, drinks, or deserts to help keep preparation to a minimum.  It was such a great idea to ask everyone to bring something so that the host and hostess didn’t have to bar-b-que non-stop.  After dinner everyone put out their desserts.  I had been walking around with one of the kids when I saw my husband gesture to me about dessert being served.  As I walked toward the table, my husband said:  “Your kid is eating dirt.”  I said:  “What?”  I looked on the table and saw a green plastic flower pot with a plastic garden shovel and what appeared to be dirt plus a rather large daisy drooping over the side (which apparently was standing straight up prior to the digging in and devouring.  I also saw a bunch of kids eating it like crazy.  I said:  “What is that?”  Someone had made a cake inside this ordinary garden bucket.  I imagine that it was ADORABLE before they dug into it.  As I checked out the plates–the cake did indeed look like dirt and it had worms inside:  GUMMY WORMS!   SO CUTE!  So I sought out its’ creator and got the info on how to make it.

     Here is what you will need (The amount will depending on how large of a container you are using.  She doesn’t have set cup measures: 

 One or more packages of OREOs (She used the low fat variety)

 One or more packages Jello Vanilla Pudding

  One container Sour Cream

 One or two containers of  COOL WHIP topping

  Two or three (depending on how crazy you want to go) packages of Gummy Worms 

  One plastic planting container

  One  Plastic garden shovel or Trowel

   A few artificial flowers to poke from the top of the “soil”

Here’s how you make it:

Place the OREO cookies (SANDWHICH AND CREME INSIDE–not the 100 calorie crisps which do not have the creme) in a blender and crush them until they are of a powder-like consistency.

In a separate bowl prepare your pudding and allow it to set.

 Once the pudding sets, add your sour cream and COOL WHIP mix together for a nice smooth consistency.  You will want to keep testing the cream to select your desired taste–add more or less COOL WHIP or Sour Cream till you achieve the taste you want.

Once you achieve your perfect mixture you are ready to assemble the cake

In a NEW, CLEAN, plastic garden flower pot, add a two inch layer of crushed cookie crumbs.

Follow up with an inch layer of the creme mixture.

Add a few Gummy worms throughout the creme layer –not too many!

Add a second layer of cookie crumbs and then alternate with the creme mixture and the gummy worms.  Start layering again with the cookie crumbs then creme and GUMMY WORMS –ETC…until you reach a good level in the flower pot.   

 End the layer with the COOKIE CRUMBS so the top of your cake will look like SOIL.

Place a few artificial flowers in the soil and assemble a nice little flower pot for yourself.  Add a Gummy Worm too if you’d like for good measure. 

Use your NEW garden shovel or garden trowel to serve.

Many thanks to the great chef at the ELSIE LANE block party for passing on her recipe. 

The kids of PS 146 had a half day of school yesterday!  Hooray! (for them).  Yes, it is great to have extra time with the kids, but they get bored so quickly don’t they?  It doesn’t take long for them to get on each other’s nerves and start driving mom and dad crazy too.  A friend of mine suggested we go have lunch at Carosello on Crossbay Boulevard in Howard Beach, NY.  The reason we chose this place over the large number of choices contained on Cross Bay blvd was because Carosello was running a fundraiser with the Parent Teacher Association of P.S. 146 and we wanted to do our part for the school ( 10% of our check would go to the school). 

     We arrived at about 11:30 and the place was empty, but it quickly began to fill up with the lunch time crowd.  As you walk through the main entrance you are greeted by a wonderful carnival/circus painted mural.  From the second you open the doors, you know that you are in a kid-friendly environment.  The tables and seating sections are divided by movable striped walls so if need be, the waiter/waitress can section off a more quiet area for business lunches and still serve the giggling gaggles of kids.  The lunch menu was quite extensive offering lots of choices at great prices.  Being a mom, I quickly moved to kid’s menu and I found 5 or 6 choices there all of which were kid’s favorites (hot dogs and hamburgers, mac and cheese, chicken fingers, penne and vodka).  The prices were very reasonable-all of the kids choices were under $5–I like that!  The food was brought out pretty quickly to the joy of our kids who just couldn’t wait to finish eating so they could hit the arcade.  The portions were larger than I have come to expect when eating out and of course there were lots of left overs for dinner-I also love that. ;)     As part of the fundraiser with the school, when we finished our meal we were given two dollars worth of tokens for each child.  The tokens lasted a good deal of time but I grabbed another $5 in tokens because the boys were having so much fun and I dreaded having to drag them out into the hot sun.  We stayed for about an hour and had a blast.  Ryan finished the day with 390+ tickets and Mikey earned 190 which they quickly handed into the redemption center for prizes. Spending time with friends in such a safe environment is (as they say in the commercials) “priceless.  On a scale of 1-10 ice cream cones, I give Carosello:  10 ice cream cones.  Ryan gives it 100 ice cream cones and wants to eat there “EVERYDAY!!!!”.   

PS–They also have private party rooms!  Give them a call or stop by to see what they have to offer!