Easter Archives - Page 2 of 2 - mamachallenge | Real Solutions for Real Parents

Go Thai and Try: Easy Thai-Style Halibut Recipe

March 26, 2015 By Autumn Rose Reo 18 Comments

When I was pregnant my only cravings were for strawberry cupcakes and anything Thai. I couldn’t get enough of anything Thai especially since its cuisine powers all those sweet, sour, salty and spicy taste buds. However, just because the flavor profile of Thai cuisine is complex not all the recipes have to be especially when using seafood.

With a few key ingredients like sweet chili sauce, cilantro and corriander,, you too can be cooking up your own Eastern-influenced Thai-Style Halibut that will impress your family, friends and most of all, you!

The key to this dish and any meal you make with seafood is is selecting a great piece of fish. Halibut is a very versatile white fish you can use in many dishes and starting yesterday Market Street DFW received its first shipment of halibut. If you aren’t the type to cook with seafood because it seems too complicated, you just need these tips from Market Street to make you an aficionado.

Market Street has an incredible fish selection and if you still need a little help picking the right fish, how to cook it or even to get your fish steamed onsite, all you have to do is ask. While this dish could use almost any fish cut as a fillet or a steak, halibut cooks easily on the grill, stays together, pairs well with the chili sauce and the diversity of the other flavors with the flaky meat of the fish.

Fish Tip: Trying to figure out how much fish to purchase? Approximately one pound per person should be perfect.

Fish Tip: Wondering if the fish is cooked? Remember, fish continues to cook after you take it off the heat, so make sure NOT to overcook it.

Thai-Style Halibut

Print Recipe

Ingredients

Scale

2–4 halibut steaks or fillets
3/4 cup Thai Chili Sauce (easily found in the Asian ingredient aisle)
3 Tbsp. fish sauce
6 Tbsp. soy sauce
1/3 cup chopped corriander
1/4 tsp. black pepper
5 cloves garlic (Tbsp. pureed garlic)
2 Tbsp. lime juice, freshly squeezed
1 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. cilantro, chopped

Instructions

Combine all ingredients but the fish in a bowl, stirring until completely mixed.
Rinse the fish, pat fry and place in a baking dish. Pour half the marinade over the fish and turn fish until thoroughly covered in the marinade. Marinade for 1-24 hours. (Reserve the rest of marinade for sauce.)
Brush grill with oil (I used an indoor one over the stove, but outdoors is always best), then cook fish each side for 3-4 minutes. Do not overcook.
To serve, serve fish right off the grill over Jasmine rice or vegetables. Cover fish with warm sauce and then garnish with cilantro.
Enjoy!

For the best prices on fish, meat and produce, make sure to sign up for Market Street rewards program to get points for your purchases, coupons and more. To find your closest Market Street, check out the website!

Easter Eats: Cheesy Corn Bake from 3 Stacks Smoke & Tap House {Recipe}

April 17, 2014 By Autumn Rose Reo 2 Comments

For our family, Easter lunch/dinner looks a lot like a lighter version of Thanksgiving: a big piece of meat with all the same kind of fixings like mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls, we’ll you get the picture.

So to change it up for this year, we opted for BBQ. Good ole barbecue. While Dallas-Fort Worth has tons of amazing places to enjoy BBQ cooking at its best, the hubs wants to make it himself. However, I’m in charge of the fixings. And it’s just not BBQ if I can’t get at least a few bites of this Cheesy Corn Bake from 3 Stacks Smoke House in Frisco. There’s just something about this golden goodness that screams “I need to eat this NOW.”

Perhaps it’s the cream corn.
Perhaps it’s the cornbread mix.
Perhaps it’s that one stick of butter and cheese.
Whatever it is, it’s good.

And while Trace “The Rib Whisperer” Arnold of 3 Stacks Smoke & Tap House isn’t giving out all his secrets for tasty BBQ, he did share this recipe and his tips to make it perfect. And now I’m sharing it with you!

CHEESY CORN BAKE
Trace “The Rib Whisperer” Arnold of 3 Stacks Smoke & Tap House

Ingredients

1 can of undrained whole kernel corn

1 can of cream corn

8 oz. of sour cream

2 well beaten eggs

1 box of Jiffy cornbread mix

1 stick of melted butter (not too hot, avoid clarifying the butter)

1/2 cup finely diced fresh jalapeño peppers

Instructions

Place mixture in a well-oiled 9×13 pan and bake for 55-60 minutes at 350 degrees.

Variations

Top with fresh grated cheddar or blended cheese.
Substitute jalapeños for green chilies. Cayenne pepper is also a great substitution for heat.
Add red bell pepper for a holiday flair.
Add brown Panco bread crumbs and top for a crunchy texture.
Light sour cream will reduce calories.
Cream cheese can be substituted for sour for a richer blend.
Fresh corn can be used in place of canned.
Plain yellow cornbread mix can replace Jiffy if you want to eliminate the sweet flavor of the Jiffy.

After this, you might be making this Easter side at Memorial Day, July 4th and Thanksgiving, too! Plus if you get a chance to visit 3 Stacks, I highly suggest you also try the fried dill pickle cheese fries – they’ll make every day better!

Hoppy Easter!

Easy Easter Crafts Using Handprints {As Seen on TV}

April 11, 2014 By Autumn Rose Reo Leave a Comment

I’m not a crafty mama. But it’s possible to be crafty without much skill and two hands! Here are some Easy Easter Crafts Using Handprints!

So when my latest assignment on Good Morning Texas was to demonstrate some Easter crafts…I kinda wanted to turn into a turtle and duck into my shell.

So I decided that the best crafts are the kind that anyone can do – even me.

While I don’t enjoy crafting, I do like to have a little piece of memorabilia from my kiddos to keep or give to the grandparents who don’t always get to see the kids, but love getting to stay involved in the kids’ lives.

After getting a cute craft from my child’s school using my daughter’s feet for leaves and her hands for petals, I sprung an idea. We’d do all things fun with handprints.

Honestly, these crafts are so easy, they don’t even need instructions. Just take a look at my tutorial I did on GMT on April 10. And you still have time to do these since they are so quick and still get them in the mail just in time for Easter. Or you could use many of these for Mother’s Day, too! Need more ideas?

Check out my Pinterest Easter Board!

Follow Autumn Reo {mamachallenge.com}’s board HOLIDAY: Easter on Pinterest.

Do you have any handprint crafts you’d like to share?

Easy Easter Food Fun for Everyone

April 5, 2014 By Autumn Rose Reo Leave a Comment

Looking for an Easter craft that doesn’t take too much time or creativity for a cute and yummy treat? Here’s easy Easter food fun for everyone.

“Multitasking Mama” is my middle name. Unfortunately, “Make-and-Do-Mama” isn’t.

So if creativity isn’t one of your skill sets, you are in good company. This Easter I’ve put together a few of my favorite craft ideas that are as much fun to make as they are to eat! These activities that I either found on Pinterest or have been making for years will give you and your kids something fun to do while you spend time together and best of all, when you are done, you can gobble them up for snack time.

And did I mention they are super easy? So easy in fact my son made his own YouTube video on how to make one of them? (Kids these days…)

All of these crafts were featured on Good Day Dallas on April 5, 2014. Hope you caught the segment, but if you didn’t, here’s the highlight reel and the recipes for you to make at home!

Dallas News | myFOXdfw.com

Jackson’s Easter Day Bark
From MamaChallenge.com

Package of White Almond Bark
Package of Easter M&Ms
Sprinkles
Easter Egg Malted Eggs

Place the almond bark in a microwave safe dish and microwave for 90 seconds to melt (adding more every 10 seconds until it’s melted.)

Line a baking sheet with wax paper and spread the almond bark. Drop the M&Ms and other candy over the melted bark. Allow to cool by placing in the freezer. When it solidifies, break into pieces. Makes for a cheap, easy and cute gift to friends, neighbors and teachers!

Easter Basket Cupcakes
(I’ve been doing these since I was a kid!)

Cupcake with vanilla icing
Favorite Easter candy
Licorice rope

Jelly Beans
Peeps or Chocolate Easter Bunny candy
Shredded Coconut
Green food coloring

Place coconut in a plastic baggie or a plastic bowl with a lid. Drop 3-5 drops of food color and then cover. Shake container until completely saturated green. There’s your Easter grass!

Now just line up all your candies in a few bowls so the kids can easily get to them to make their Easter baskets.

Taking the cupcake, sprinkle or swirl cupcake until the top is covered in coconut. Now place your Peep or Chocolate bunny in cupcake. Place jelly beans around it to look like eggs. Last place both ends of your licorice stick into the cupcake to resemble a basket. Now eat it!

Carrot Snacks
This is a great for small kids that doesn’t involve sugar!

1 quart size plastic baggies or clear pastry bags
Favorite orange snacks (I prefer Amy’s Organic Bunnies, buy you can use Cheetos or Goldfish)
Green ribbon

After removing the zip closure on the bags with a diagonal cut, please snacks in one corner of the bag and twist up to resemble a carrot. To close, tie a green ribbon around the top to look like a stem and you are done!

Strawberry Carrots
White Chocolate Chips or Orange Melts
1-2 Tablespoons of shortening
Orange powdered icing coloring
Strawberries
Crushed Oreos

Melt chocolate with shortening until smooth in the microwave or over a double boiler. Now turn chocolate orange if needed with the icing coloring. Next after drying your strawberries (if you don’t the water will cause chocolate to seize and turn gritty), dip the strawberry into chocolate until covered. Place on wax paper to dry for 15-20 minutes. Serve “carrots” over a bed of crushed Oreo to resemble a garden.

Carrot Patch Cups
As seen on Kidzui.com

2 Packets of instant chocolate pudding
2 Cups of milk
1 Thawed package of Cool Whip
2 Cups Oreo cookies
Orange Icing (or white with orange food coloring)
Edible candy grass (or Coconut dyed with green food coloring)

Mix the pudding and milk together.
Gently stir in the Cool Whip.
Crush your Oreos and add half of them to the pudding.
Divide the pudding mixture into cups or dishes and top with the remaining Oreos.
Pipe the orange frosting onto the top to look like a carrot growing out of the ground.
Top with a few blades of fake grass.

Take a look at all the fun Easter crafts I’ve found on my Pinterest page!

Follow Autumn Reo {mamachallenge.com}’s board HOLIDAY: Easter on Pinterest.

Don’t miss these #mamachallenge moments!

Easter Basket Idea: Hatch & Grow Your Own Easter Bunny, Chick or Duck!

March 26, 2013 By Autumn Rose Reo 2 Comments

DISCLAIMER: I received one or more of the mentioned products for the sole purpose of this review. No other compensating was given and all opinions expressed are 100 percent my own. (Accordance with FTC’s 16 CFR Part 255, “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”)

I’m all about creating a memorable holiday for my kids, but with a two kiddos under 4, the thought of creating an Easter basket, full of candy, just doesn’t seem like a good idea! However, neither are stuffed animals or just more of the junk they already have. But when these Hide ‘Em & Hatch ‘Ems landed in my mailbox, I knew that I had to hide them from my kids because there was no one way they would be able to wait if they saw them!

These pastel-colored eggs are great for hiding or filling the Easter basket…but here’s the twist: simply soak them in water overnight and out will “hatch” some new friends…a duck, chick or bunny!

Kids will be amazed and parents will delight in the fact that there’s no candy involved.

Hatch ’ems were the #1 Easter product on Amazon.com, but you can still score yours now – just in time for Easter!

During our first hatch, it took several days for the chick to hatch, so I want to share tips to ensure your egg hatches within just one day!

Instructions for the Best Experience with the Hide ’em & Hatch ’em Eggs!

1. Place the eggs in ROOM TEMPERATURE water (this is critical to the grow process!) Make sure the eggs are completely submerged.

2. In 6 – 12 hours you will see small cracks in the shell. At this point you can help your little friend out by cracking the shell (just like a mamma might need to do for her hatchling) or you can change the water and let it continue to grow.

3. You will notice the water (and the baby) will be slippery. This is the material that allows it to grow – it is necessary to change the water so your new friend can grow completely.

4. Continue to change the water daily until your animal hatches on its own or until the animal is done growing.

5. Enjoy your new friend – Once removed from the water shrinkage will probably occur but the animal will harden and is fun to play with! (Our little friend went on a train ride once he hatched!)

We hatched a chick our first-round, but we can’t wait to see what we hatch next!

I’d love to see your photos of your little friends! Please share!

Chef Jackson’s Microwave Easter Day Bark {Recipe}

March 22, 2013 By Autumn Rose Reo Leave a Comment

Food Fridays:

I have high aspirations of making holidays memorable for my children cooking and decorating, but my best-laid plans sometimes fall short with all the other things that get in the way. But this Easter I wasn’t going to let mom’s crazy schedule get in the way of some family fun – even if it was a “minimized” version.

Using my new skills as the Microwave Mama, the boy and I decided to cook up what he called “Easter Day Bark.” Needing only three ingredients and some microwave action, I was going to put together a video to show how easy it was to create this tasty and cute Easter treat. However, my son asked if he could do a video, too so I let him go.

Of course, in just one take, my own little TV star created a video that Bobby Flay could be proud of. While not the most innovative recipe ever, he tells you exactly how to do it in no time at all (although his focus is certainly on the M&Ms.)

So I can honestly this recipe is so easy your 4-year-old can make it.

Without further ado, here’s Chef Jackson!

Jackson’s Microwave Easter Day Bark

Recipe Adapted from ServedUpwithLove

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