Thursday, August 26, 2010

Rice Krispies Recipe Challenge & a GIVEAWAY

 We are a pretty creative bunch around this house. You can often find us creating a new craft project, doing some sort of art work, or baking up something special in the kitchen. I think it is important to engage my kids in hands-on projects and adventures. That's why I was really excited when I was recently contacted by The Motherhood and Rice Krispies to be a part of their Rice Krispies Challenge.

How it works is, 10 bloggers were chosen to individually create a top-secret recipe based on a "clue". But this wasn't just any clue. Each of us received our own clue, that we had to bring to twitter (using the #ricekrispies hashtag made it easy for the 10 of us to stay connected), and put all of our words together into a cohesive sentence.


This is the contents of my packages (one included the "clue's" and the other contained the ingredients). If you look closely, you will see that my clue word was "STARTER".

Once we all got together on twitter, I think @madamedeals put it all together to read:

"Make Your Rice Krispies Recipe An After School Conversation Starter"

Once we got approval from the awesome ladies over at The Motherhood, my brain got to work. I enlisted the help of my Mom, because she is super creative with these kinds of things.  We decided on some form of a parfait; with pudding, fruit, whip cream...... yum!

I knew I wanted to do something that would.....

1. Be quick to make. I have two toddlers that aren't well-versed on the concept of time and patience. So, something I could get ready while they are napping would be ideal.

2. Have ingredients my kids would love. And this is a very delicate topic, because what they like one day, they may very well hate the next. So I stuck to staple ingredients that I knew they'd still be loving....at least until next week.

3. Look fun and festive when we were finished. If I've learned anything with my family owning a Dairy Queen, it is that it has to look as good as it tastes!

The Ingredients


4-5 Cups of Rice Krispies Cereal
1/2 package of large Marshmallows
 1/2 stickButter
Instant Pudding (and milk)
Your Favorite Fruits (we used blueberries, banana's, and strawberries)
Whip Cream
Fun garnishes (we used bakery sugars in the shapes of crayons)

You'll also need:
Small pot
Cupcake tin
Cooking spray
Spoons
Bowls/Parfait Dishes

1. Make 1 box of pudding according to the package. Put the finished pudding in the refrigerator to keep cool to allow to form until needed.


2. Make Rice Krispies as according to the package, but only make 1/2 the batch. Once you are ready to spoon them into a pan, first take a spoonful and press it into the greased, cupcake pan. Essentially, you are making small, Rice Krispie shaped "cookies". [A good tip? Dip your fingers into some butter before pressing down the Rice Krispies, keeps them from sticking to you!] Let them cool while you are finishing the remainder of the recipe. If there is any left, put in into a pan and make good ol' Rice Krispie Treats.


3. Wash and cut up the fruit you will be using, place into separate bowls. 


4. Spoon in a layer of pudding into a glass or parfait dish.

5. Follow with layers of fruit (I even threw in a handful of Rice Krispies, straight from the box, for a little extra crunch!). The fun part about this step is you can customize it to your liking. If you love strawberries, stick to strawberry parfait. Or if you like them all, mix all the fruits up. You'll see in my final photo the variety I made, a little something for all the ages in our house!

6. Add a bit of whip cream, stick the Rice Krispies "cookie" on the top, a garnish if you'd like and your done!


What I really loved about this project was the chance to do something fun with the kids. They both had fun with different parts of it, and honestly Lily ate more than she helped. But it was cute, we had a good time, and in the end, the most important thing was we spent time together. Thanks The Motherhood and Rice Krispies for inviting me to participate in this challange!


WIN IT!

I'd love to hear from you guys! Do you have any fun and simple recipes you have come up with to make with your kids you'd like to share? Leave me a comment and tell me about it! And everyone who leaves a comment on this post gets a chance to win a set of 2 Rice Krispies Snap! Crackle! and Pop! Bowls (please limit one comment a day and the comments must be interesting, no "pick me!" comments or it will be thrown out.)
 


Contest ends Tuesday August 31, 2010 at 11:59pm CST.

Disclosure: I was invited to participate in this contest by The Motherhood and Rice Krispies. I was compensated, but that by no means alters or sways my opinion on the product or the company.

2 comments:

Candy @ Mommypalooza said...

i love making treats with my kids. one of their fave things (and mine too) is fruit kabobs. They're easy, healthy, and fun to make and eat too! We take skewers and after i've cut up pineapples, melons and washed a few grapes & strawberries, I let them go for it! They love coming up with their own designs.

Laila @OnlyLaila said...

My favorite recipe to make with my son is banana pudding. He's 3.5yo so he can help me mix and layer the wafers with the bananas. I've also tried to make it educational by making him count the bananas slices and wafers as he layers.:-)