It has been a while since we have celebrated a national food holiday.  Today we made caramel apples after school.  n could not wait for k to get home from school!

We just microwaved Kraft caramels with a little water.  I think the key was pre-chilling the apples in the refrigerator before dipping.  The caramel stayed on pretty well.  We let them harden up in the fridge on a Silpat and they were easy to remove. 

The kids wanted to wait until D came home to eat them.  I think they wanted to experience his silly and dramatic reactions that he makes when eating yummy food. 

Last Friday we went to Krispy Kreme to pick out our free donut.  The donut machine is always fascinating.

Both k and n picked the same one as last year—chocolate with sprinkles.

This year, I was not tempted by the signs for key lime pie donuts and stuck with my tried and true favorite: custard filled with chocolate icing.

Happy National Poundcake Day!  I made this one from this recipe. 

Not perfect, but I am not really on the quest to find “the best” since we do not eat it very often.  I think that is in part due to the name “poundcake” (which comes from the original recipe including a pound of flour, a pound of sugar, a pound of eggs and a pound of butter), but implies the pounds you will gain from eating it.  In contrast, I think Girl Scouts Thin Mints’ enormous popularity is largely attributable to the fact that the name includes “thin”!  Really genius marketing if you think about it.

In other news, k and n seem to have just discovered that the backyard is a fun hangout, after four years of living in this house. 

They’ve been playing baseball, scootering in a small circle, and putting on “shows” for their stuffed animal audience.  I remember my mom used to lament the fact that the backyard I grew up with in Seal Beach was so much smaller than the one she and her sister had growing up in North Hollywood.  Now, our backyard is even smaller than the Seal Beach one!  But really, I am just grateful to have a space, however small, where the kids can play safely outside with minimal supervision.  And the kids make do, as kids do.   

Yesterday we went to IHOP for a free short stack of buttermilk pancakes.  The day before we went to Yogurtland for National Frozen Yogurt Day.  I have a renewed interest in celebrating national food holidays, which I pretty much only did in February of last year.  We’ll see if I can keep it up longer this year. 

How does IHOP make these beautifully uniform golden brown pancakes?  Is this possible to do at home?  Do I need to invest in a flat top griddle?

We took the leftovers home + I made eggs=breakfast for dinner!

A friend told us about IHOP’s national pancake day. I wasn’t planning to go originally, but D wasn’t going to be home when we ate dinner, so I thought why not? We received 3 free short stacks of pancakes (which each consist of 3 pancakes). That’s a lot of pancakage. At first I felt weird about going to a sit down restaurant and only ordering free items, but the waitress was very nice and I noticed a lot of tables doing the same. Also, we left a tip and a donation for the Children’s Miracle Network, so it was for a good cause.

I would also like to note that we celebrated National Banana Bread day on February 23:

February 3: National Carrot Cake Day. Made a carrot cake for D to bring to a potluck at work.

February 6: National Frozen Yogurt Day. Went to Yogurtland and waited in line for 15 minutes for free frozen yogurt/toppings.

February 7: National Fettuccine Alfredo Day. Made “Spaghetti Alfredo” as I did not have any fettuccine on hand.

Apparently, there is some dispute as to whether national popcorn day is today (January 31) or January 19. We’re just going with today to keep up the momentum.

I made kettle corn on the stove using the recipe here. k was squealing with delight when the corn started popping.

n missed out on the pop corn popping, but he ate some when he woke up from his nap.

I have decided to have our family celebrate national food holidays. I think it will help inspire me to try new things with the kids and break up the monotony. We’ll see how long I can stick with it.

Today, January 30th happens to be National Croissant Day, which is a nice way to start.

Ralphs has 18 ct. packages of mini croissants for $5.99. Just thought that might be helpful for someone to know. They would be perfect for a tea party.

Unrelated to National Croissant Day: Someone thought it would be a good idea to drink his yogurt (k gave him the idea).