What Not To Wear . . . (and recipes!)

Normally little Miss Hannie B has some serious fashion moxy. She throws together outfits that are so cute and coordinated it makes me a little jealous. But yesterday I let her go to school looking like this:

It was "Mismatched Day" at school, part of a spirit week that gets the kids pumped up for the Teacher vs. Fifth Grade parents basketball game - the same game the Hubby will participate in, in a desperate attempt to redeem the parents, who have lost for the past three years straight. Even though Hannie was mismatched, I still thought she looked totally sassy and cute. My girl loves her some pattern.

This kid, on the other hand, really just looked like a complete geek - and I love him for it.

Big C was way to cool to go mismatched, but I did convince him to wear two different colored socks. Today is hat day and tomorrow is crazy hair day (my personal fave). Stay tuned for some awesome locks tomorrow! And now, here are two tried and true recipes that won big money at the dessert auction:

Hand Dipped Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls:

1 stick margarine
2 cups creamy peanut butter
1 lb powdered sugar
3 cups rice crispies cereal
2 bags semi-sweet chocolate chips
paraffin wax

1. Combine margarine and peanut butter in microwave safe bowl and heat for one minute in microwave until margarine is melted. Stir well to combine.

2. In large bowl combine peanut butter mixture, powdered sugar and cereal, stirring until all ingredients are incorporated. Mixture will be a little bit crumbly.

3. Shape tablespoon sized amounts of mixture firmly into balls by hand and place on cookie sheet.

4. On stove top over a double boiler, melt chocolate chips adding paraffin wax sparingly until you get a smooth, glossy chocolate with a consistency like syrup. Once chocolate is at right consistency, turn double boiler to low, just to keep chocolate melted, but to prevent it from drying out.

5. Drop balls three or four at a time into chocolate. Use a toothpick or small wooden skewer to roll balls in chocolate. Remove balls from chocolate by gently spearing with a toothpick. Place balls on wax paper to cool by carefully rotating toothpick in a clockwise motion until ball slide off.
6. Cool completely before eating or gifting.

Luscious Orange Cake

Cake:

1 pkg yellow cake mix (I always use Duncan Hines)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 (11oz) can mandarin oranges, drained
1/2 cup plus 1 Tbsp orange juice
1 tsp vanilla

Frosting:

2 (8 oz) cans crushed pineapple with juice
1 pkg vanilla instant pudding mix
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 (8 oz) tub Cool Whip

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three round 9 inch cake pans. Combine cake ingredients in bowl and mix with hand mixer for one minute on low and then three minutes on medium. Mixture should be smooth with small bits of mandarin orange. Pour equally into three pans. Bake for 25 minutes until cake is spongy to the touch or a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes IN PANS on wire rack. Then remove from pans and cool completely on wire rack.
While cake is cooling, make frosting. Drain pineapple juice, adding it to pudding mix and combining well. Add pineapple, powdered sugar and vanilla. Fold in cool whip.

To assemble cake, frost between each layer, then outside of cake. I added toasted coconut and a sugared orange slice to the top of my cake for display purposes only.