4th of July: Food

As July 4th is rapidly approaching us Five Times the Funners decided to give y'all a little taste of everything! We will show you some great foods to serve at your 4th of July party, red white and blue themed clothing for the festivities, and some awesome crafts to make all this come together perfectly! So lets goooooo:

Food

Here are some super easy quick ways to give your 4th of July BBQ or party the little red, white and blue spirit it needs!

This first treat is an adaption of our previous post "Pretzel Buttons". For those of you who haven't seen that post we attached a link to it and we will also show you quickly{and very briefly} what to do :)

When you are at the store shopping for ingredients be sure to pick up 4th of July themed M&Ms and Hershey Hugs! The more themed the betterrrrrrr :) Do the recipe just like normal. Preheat the oven 200F. Line a cookie sheet with pretzels. Place the Hershey Hugs onto the pretzels. Bake 4-5 mins then remove from the oven. Take your M&Ms and smush them down onto the pretzels. Place the Pretzel Buttons into the freezer to cool. Tada yummy little treats!

The second treat is chocolate covered strawberries. Who doesn't love some sweet strawberries with chocolately goodness? Take your strawberries and wash and clean them. Melt your chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and use the "chocolate" setting on your microwave {if you don't have that setting just watch the chocolate so it doesn't burn} Hold the strawberries by their stems and dip them into the chocolate. Now here is where you can get creative. Either dip your still warm chocolate strawberries in blue sprinkles or you can let the chocolate cool and then apply zigzags and stripes to it with red or blue chocolate/icing.

And of course, you can't celebrate a totally American holiday without Apple Pie! We made a post called "Mini Apple Pies" which explain exactly what you would need for this yummy American treat! 

If you are looking for an even easier way to get the red white and blue theme, serve licorice, yogurt covered pretzels and blueberries. Or any other colored treats! Those were just some quick and easy ways to make your BBQ or 4th party a little more 4th themed :) Hope this helped you get in the spirit!

Macaroons

Happy Sunday! 

If any of y'all saw our instagram post this is what we told you to stay tuned for! While in Paris during Christmas, I was impressed by all the little french pastry shops and I prommmmised myself I would look into attempting to bake some of the things I saw! 

So here is one of my attempts: Macaroons.

 I have been working on the recipe awhile to perfect it and I think I have finally done it {all my friends have loved getting the macaroons for lunch!}.

 So here is my recipe for yummy yummmy macaroons!

Ingredients:

Icing Sugar 1/2 Cup

Almond Flour 6 tbsp + 2 2/3 tsp

Egg White 1

Granulated Sugar 4 1/4 tsp

Frosting {your choice!}

Method:

1. Beat the egg white stiff. A stiff egg white means that when you hold the bowl upside down, the egg while will not fall out. {pretty cool! it almost looks like icing}

2. Add granulated sugar and beat again until stiff and glossy. {basically till the sugar is all the way mixed in}

3. Add almond flour and icing sugar and beat again

4. Preheat the oven to 280 degrees F.

5. Pipe small circles of the dough onto parchment paper and let sit for 30 minutes {the tops will be crusted slightly} {sometimes I just skip the sitting, it doesn't really matter that much!}

6. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until the tops of the macaroons bounce up when touched lightly with a fork

7. Let the cookies cool for 10 minutes before pealing off the parchment paper

8. Once cooled, frost with frosting. Fill each cookie with frosting and then sandwich with other cookie.

Some people like to add food coloring to the dough and it always adds a nice touch in my opinion. 

SO go get your French on and go make some delicious macaroons! :) mmmmmmmm so yummy.

Spaghetti Squash

Im sure most of you have noticed the increasing number of recipes being added to FiveTimesFun! Cooking and baking are definitely two of my favorite activities and to make sure I don't blow up from all this cooking, I've started looking into healthy eating alternatives. One of my favorite favorite foods to eat is spaghetti. Pasta of any kind is my guilty pleasure. I LOVE PASTA! sooo as bikini season rapidly approaches it is time to avoid white breads and pastas! So sad. 

I have found a super yummy and delicious alternative to eating pasta... Spaghetti Squash!

Spaghetti Squash is a yellow fruit and it can be baked, boiled, steamed or microwaved. It contains many nutrietnts, including folic acid, potassium, Vitamin A, and beta carotene. This squash is low in calories-- about 42 calories per cup! The flesh is similar to most other squash but once cooked the flesh falls away from the fruit in ribbons similar to spaghetti.

Spaghetti Squash is super easy to cook and can be substituted in any pasta dish as the pasta! Here is our favorite spaghetti squash recipe...

Ingredients:

1 small spaghetti squash

extra-virgin olive oil

salt and peper

1 pound thin asparagus, steamed tender

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary

1/2 cup part-skim ricott cheese

1 tablespoon toasted pine nuts

Preparation:

Halve the squash. 

Microwave on high for 20-30 minutes {I always do 25 minutes! but microwave for as long as you want, until it is fork-tender} Discard the seeds. Scape the squash out with fork {it should come out easily and look like spaghetti ribbons}

Place the squash into a bowl. Drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper. 
Keep It Warm!

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large nonstick pan over medium heat. Slice asparagus into small pieces and sauté with garlic and rosemary until tender {around 1-2 minutes} 

 

Stir ricotta into the squash. Then, sauté until hot and creamy and top with pine nuts {and maybe a little parmesan cheese if you wish!}

 

There is your delicious creamy spaghetti squash with asparagus and rosemary. I've changed this recipe up a little bit by adding tomatoes {sun dried or cherry} or by adding a rosemary chicken. All alternatives are great!

Let us know what you think :) and submit any recipes you have! We would love to feature some recipes right here on Five Times the Fun!

Mama's famous chocolate torte

A holiday favorite in our house is our mama's chocolate torte! This easy to make dessert is always a hit at any holiday party & is VERY easy to make.

Ingredients:

• Graham crackers
• 1/2 pound of semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 pound of dark chocolate chips
• 5 tablespoons of rum {optional}
• 5 tablespoons of liquid glucose 
• 32 oz of heavy whipping cream
• Spring loaded pie tin {pictured below}

This easy to make dessert is always a hit at any holiday party & is VERY easy to make.

Begin by crushing the graham crackers in a zip lock bag to create the crust. 

Next, sprinkle the graham crackers in the spring loaded pie tin.

Combine chocolate, rum, and glucose into a bowl and melt the chocolate {be careful it doesn't burn!}

Whip the cream to a point where it is stiff, but not as fluffy as whipped cream.

Fold the melted ingredients and the cream together and then pour into the tin on top of the graham cracker crust.

Then freeze for 48 hours!

Bon Appétit

xo

Black Friday Crafting Coupons

For any of you craaazzzzzyyyy black friday shoppers, we found some great deals for you! If any of you want to try some of our DIY's for EVEN CHEAPER than we did them, tomorrow is the day to hit up these deals!!

World Market

Starting TODAY {online} & TOMORROW World Market has a great Buy 1 Get 1 Free Sale. Stores open at 7am Friday and 8am Saturday and Sunday. I would recommend purchasing - MASON JARS {$0.99-$19} and ornaments are 25% off {incase you want to use ornaments for snow globes}. Also if you want to give away some of your diy creations, all holiday wrap and baskets are Buy 1 Get 1 Free.

*literally every craft we do uses mason jars, they would be a fantastic investment at this low price if your planning on trying any of our ideas*

 

JOANNs

Incase you readers haven't noticed my craft store of choice is JOANNs. I lahhhhvvvvv it! JOANNs usually has great deals and they are always updating their apple/android app with new coupons for use. But this black Friday JOANNs has decided to bring it up a notch. Literally everything is on sale! Stores open Friday at 6am and Saturday at 7am. JOANNs has 60% off any one regular-priced item {valid till Dec. 1st} 25% off your total purchase {from 6am-Noon on Fri. and another for Sat.}, 50% off any one regular-priced item {valid all day Fri. and another for Sat.} In addition to al these great coupons {available here!} there are also great discounts on fabrics, tule, ribbon, fabric quarters, and organizational items. 

*a majority of craft materials have come from JOANNs, so if you have a store nearby and you want to try a diy.... jump on this!*

 

Michaels

Although Michaels is not my favorite craft store {no reason, I just personally love JOANNS} they still have fantastic deals for Black Friday. Stores open 7am Friday and 8am Saturday. Michaels has 30% off entire purchase including sales {7am-noon}, 40% off entire regular purchase {noon-10... excludes sale} 25% off entire purchase including sales {8am-noon), 50% off any one regular price item {noon-10}. For any of you post turkey dinner shoppers, Michaels is open 4pm-2am and has 30% off entire purchase including sale items.

*Michaels has great deals and great items for purchase.... check it out and go get your craft on!*

 

Let us know how you do on your Black Friday crafting purchases! We hope you all had a very happy Thanksgiving & enjoy your shopping tonight and tomorrow.

xo

Mini Apple Pies

This recipe makes 12 deliciously adorable apple pies in about 40 minutes!

In a bowl, mix together the cinnamon, flour, sugar, lemon & salt

Peel, core, and cut the apples. Make sure when you cut that the apples are in small pieces {because the pies are mini!}

Now add the cut apples with the mixed dry ingredients and mix. Make sure to mix well so that all the apples are covered evenly.

Cut circles out of your pastry and line your cupcake tins with the dough. Make sure the bottom layer of pastry is larger than the top so you can squish the edges together.

Next, pile the apple filling onto the dough. Make piles in the middle of the dough so that when the pies cook, the apple filling doesn't sink and cause depressions.

Cut out more circles of pastry for the top of your pies and paint on a small amount of whipped egg to the perimeter of the circle {this will make the top and bottom stick together}

Use a fork to create the edge detail {this assures that the pie is closed}. Then cut two small holes into the top of the pies so they can breath while cooking.

Dust the top of the pies with brown sugar and the whipped egg. The egg provides a glossy look and the brown sugar glazes the pies.

Cover the pies with aluminum foil for 15 mins and then cook uncovered for the last 5. This will allows the apples to cook through while not burning the pastry. Our house smelled DELICIOUS while they were cooking!

If you like your pies EXTRA full of apples we suggest preparing 9 apples {instead of 6} and warming the diced apples on the stove. After preparing the apples we put them into a pot to cook on low heat for about 15 minutes. We wanted them to get softer {but not completely soft} so when we put them into the pastry we could fit more into the pies. Remember not to cook the apples to much because they will still bake once in the over. Once you have cooked your apples {and tasted to see how soft they are} strain the water from them and combine them with the dry ingredients as usual!

Thanks for reading & happy baking

xo