Strawberries are Gluten Free » Special Events

Let me introduce you to Puppy Chow!

admin — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 05:57:51 +0000

Apparently I’m the last one to know that puppy chow isn’t just puppy chow. It’s Puppy Chow. I had thought my facebook friends just weren’t that civilized until I stumbled on this tonight. And can I just say – it needs a better name!! YUMMY!

Puppy Chow

Recipe type: Snack, Dessert

Author: LifeMadeDelicious – Sherry Bass

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 1 min

Total time: 21 mins

Serves: 20

Sherry Bass shared this on facebook (Sherry’s profile: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=595200936)

Ingredients

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 tsp vanilla
9 cups chex cereal
2 cups powdered sugar (confectioner’s sugar)

Instructions

Combine peanut butter, butter and chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl.
Microwave for one minute then stir to blend all ingredients thoroughly. Add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Stir well.
Place the 9 cups of Chex cereal in a very large bowl.
Pour the peanut butter-chocolate mixture over the cereal and toss evenly, making sure all the cereal gets a good covering.
Place the powdered sugar in a large zip-lock type plastic bag.
Add the peanut butter-chocolate cereal mixture to the bag, leaving enough room for the puppy chow to be shaken (you may have to divide the mixture into smaller batches, coating one batch at a time).
Shake the bag vigorously to evenly coat each piece of the puppy chow with powdered sugar.
Once the mixture is fully coated, place in a large serving bowl.
Coat any additional pieces by shaking the mixture in the powdered sugar filled bag. Add powdered sugar to the bag as needed until all the mixture is coated.

Hostess Gifts in 10 minutes flat!

admin — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:11:29 +0000

Candy Cane Candy bark! We made a cookie sheet of it, and broke it up, bagged it, and are delivering to neighbors & friends this week. The kids had a blast smashing the candy canes!

Read below the recipe to find printable bag toppers!

Peppermint Candy Cane Bark

Recipe type: Dessert, Candy,

Author: Cathy Tibbles | Strawberries Are Gluten Free

Prep time: 2 mins

Cook time: 8 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Serves: 20

Gluten free and easy gift – ready in 30 minutes.

Ingredients

1 lb white candy melts (gluten free – means do NOT get them from open bulk containers)
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
4 drops red food coloring, optional
300g chocolate chips
3 Tbsp vegetable shortening
4 – 10 drops peppermint extract – to taste
6 candy canes, crushed

Instructions

Melt the white candy melts & shortening in a double boiler
Prepare cookie sheet with parchment paper or tin foil
When all melts are dissolved, add peppermint extract, stir well
(optional – add red food coloring to top of double boiler, stir 6 times lightly for a swirl effect)
Pour onto cookie sheet, spread evenly
Melt chocolate chips in same double boiler, stirring to an even color until completely melted.
Pour chocolate chips & shortening evenly over white layer. Take knife and swirl the two layers together.
Top with crushed candy canes before the chocolate chips set.
Put in freezer to set in 5 minutes.
Remove, break into pieces and put in pretty bags for gifting!

Click on the image to go to the site and download these FREE printable bag toppers! How cute are they?

Kids’ can do it – cute printables & coloring sheets

admin — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 05:57:47 +0000

Cute holiday printables from LifeMadeDelicious.com, our purveyor of gluten free Betty Crocker in Canada & easy recipes! Did you know you can also win things on their Facebook Page? And have some say in which gluten free products they bring to Canada! I’m going for the Bisquick biscuit mix!! I wannit!

Download some cute coloring pages:

Click Image to Download

Download some DIY color & attach gift tags:

Click Image to Download

Download a couple adorable Christmas greeting cards for the kids to color:

Click Image to Download

An Almost Sleepover Birthday Party!

admin — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:48:58 +0000

Last weekend, we put together my youngest (she’s 6 now!!) daughter’s birthday party! I LOOOOVE going completely bonkers with parties. It is my entertainment – something for which to drag myself away from the computer. Since my daughter is only six, and sleep is really important, we had an ‘almost’ sleepover party with all the girls going home at 8pm!

Here’s the invites, and printables (example).

The banner hung on the wall under the twinkle lights. The circles were punched out with a scalloped 2″ square punch, glued on juice boxes with a tulle bow, and the left & right edges glued together to make an ‘envelope’ for the straws. They can also be used for cupcake toppers if you have cupcakes. Thank you tags were fixed to the white craft bags with teddy bear beads and ribbon.

The invites said, “Its an Almost Slumber Party”, Please bring your PJ’s, sleeping bag or comforter, and pillow. Time: 5:30 – 8pm

From Etsy Store: Party So Perfect

Gluten Free (Betty Crocker) Chocolate Cake

Sugar-coated Pretzels

It is ridiculously easy to coat anything with candy melts. You just melt them in the microwave, add food coloring and drizzle or dip your sweet goodies. We found sugar free candy melts from the Galloways. The pretzels above are wheat pretzels, but this will work just as well with GF pretzels. We used purchased pink sugar for coating. Just never use bulk-baking goods if you’re party must be Gluten Free!

Sleeping Teddy Bear Soda Crackers (not GF)

There are Gluten Free Teddy Graham crackers/cookies you can purchase from the grocery store. These ones are wheat based. We broke off the bodies of the teddy bears – the girls thought this was pretty fun because they got to eat the bodies. Then we dipped the crackers in candy melts. The salty cracker and sweet candy melts were YUMMMY.

Sugar Free cookies with Candy Melts

Favors

Favors for the sleepover party included: mini flashlights with tulle bows, stickers, candies, assorted princess favors(bracelet, ring, activity sheet, pencil).

Cutest Flashlights Ever (hanging under tulle)

I couldn’t have asked for better flashlights! These were the kind that you have to hold down the button to keep them ON which worked great – the batteries lasted the whole night!

Cutest Birthday Girl Ever

The party table is behind her and the birthday cake. I didn’t get a good picture of the food table set up properly.

Food

Make your own pizza (we used English muffins and pizza toppings).
Yogurt tubes,
fruit tray (with cream cheese dip)
sweets & cake

The cake was SUPER easy to make! We used Betty Crocker GFree Chocolate Cake mix and pre-mixed whipped white frosting (2 cans). We cut off a wedge of the cake to make the dip where the teddy bears would sleep. The the cake is covered in white frosting.

The ‘blanket’ is died pink, and then just dropped on top in big dollops letting it droop over the sides like a comfy comforter. The pillow is gobs of icing. And the teddy bears were made from Marzipan. I found marzipan “potatoes” – I have no idea why there was marzipan colored to look like potatoes (xmas thing maybe?) but it worked fabulously to make these cute teddy bear heads.

Decor

It was super easy to decorate with lights everywhere! We put up twinkle lights, some pink streamers, and the birthday banner – thats it! We added some balloons for play and it was beautiful!

Table

Set with 2 layers of table cloths. DIY pizza was set up on the first layer.

TIP: cover your oven tray in tin foil and use a permanent marker to mark each girls pizzas to keep them organized.

Once the pizzas were made and slipped into the oven, we removed the entire top layer – table cloth and all – and tossed it!

Second layer Table: white tablecloth, purple napkin, white plate, utensils and yogurt tube were wrapped in a pink napkin. Utensils were placed beside plate, with a tulle-wrapped juice box at the top of it. Plate had the sleeping teddy bear cookies on each. Center of the table was decorated with twinkle lights, and the fruit trays. We had flower center pieces but they weren’t needed.

Activities

The girls when they arrived, set up their sleeping bags and pillows and just had a great time hanging out on the carpets and pillows. This was a first sleep-over for most of them.
DIY Pizza
Dinner – grabbed plates of fruit & yogurt and then ate pizzas when they came out of the oven
Build a Bears – once we opened the packages we figured out that it would require more sewing than the girls were capable of. Thank goodness I had 2 pre-teen helpers! So we sewed while the girls…
had FAR MORE fun just letting loose and running around with flashlights. They climbed under the table and had story time (all their own idea). They took turns shining their flashlights at their faces and then telling “Once upon a time” stories. It was absolutely adorable to listen to. For the most part they retold their favorite disney stories.
Opened presents – we tried the two chairs thing this year – it worked beautifully, the girl gifting Megan sat next to her and Megan said thank you before opening the present.
We still sewed.
Then they played balloon tag, and flashlight tag. And squealed and screeched a LOT. It was absolutely brilliant!
And we sewed some more.
Then the girls decided to play with Megan’s new presents.
And we almost finished sewing in time to pack up the teddy bears and send them home!
DIY Favor Bags – they chose items they wanted in their bags

IMPORTANT TIP: bring a camera that takes pictures in the dark really well!