My mom makes these cookies around Christmas time, but I thought they’d be lovely for spring as well. The combination of the sweet coconut nest and the bitter chocolate center is one of my most delicious memories from childhood.
With only four ingredients and no baking time, these birds’ nest cookies are an easy treat to prepare in a flash. And because they don’t involve any raw eggs but do allow you do get your hands messy, it’s a toddler-friendly kitchen project, too.
~Ingredients~
1 bag coconut, 14 oz or about 5 cups
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 cup (1/2 of an 11.5-oz bag) bitter dark chocolate chips (the less sweet the better to balance out the sugary nests – I used Ghirardelli 60% Cocao Baking Chips, but feel free to go even darker!)
~Directions~
In a large bowl, combine coconut and powdered sugar with a large wooden spoon.
Melt the butter and drizzle over the coconut mixture. Mix to combine.
Using a teaspoon as a scoop, form 1-inch balls of the mixture in your hands, lay on a cookie sheet, and while still holding with two fingers on the outside, poke your finger into the center to create a little crater for the chocolate. They’ll feel crumbly, but they will hold together once they’ve sat for a bit.
Once they are all laid out, melt the chocolate over low heat, stirring until fully melted and smooth. Using a teaspoon, drip the mealted chocolate into the center holes to fill.
Let the centers harden about 30 minutes, and then store in the fridge until ready to eat.
This recipe yielded 30 nests. Three days later, we are still enjoying them!
I love that in France the fish is the symbol of April Fool’s day. Back in high school my French teacher went all out (as she did every day, for that matter), sneakily taping a paper fish to someone’s back and seeing if they caught it before class was over. During our time living in France, I noticed that a lot of the Easter/spring candies were in the shape of fish in addition to eggs and bells. I wonder if the symbols all became associated with Easter, or if the fish takes on new meaning for the Christian holiday (fish on Friday during Lent perhaps?). In any case, I have fully embraced the fish as our springtime emblem.
With fusible interfacing and an iron, it took me about 5 minutes to enbellish this shirt last night. I was going to zigzag stitch around the borders of each fish, but I’ve got job applications to write and a chapter to finish, so this will do for now!
Pause for quick photo…and…he’s off!
Because Jax loves fish and all things water, I thought I’d perfect my recycled crayons method using an ice cube mold we picked up at IKEA. Now, the tray said “for water only” but I thought it would still work well for crayon melting since the oven is only set to “warm” for this project. I had tried this with a heart mold for Valentine’s day but neglected to grease the mold first, so I thought that would solve my problems this time.
The greased mold with broken crayon bits
After 10 minutes, they started to melt, but I soon noticed the bowing of the tray was going to pose a problem…
Some spillage, but using the potholders to weigh down the sides, I straightened out the mold and let the crayons cool and harden this way.
And then the removal: disaster as I carefully popped the fish out. Only two fish survived with tails (out of twelve).
The mold didn’t fare any better with the greasing, either. Oh well. We can always remelt and try again with a different mold. In the mean time, we still have some fun multi-colored ovals to color with!
Last Wednesday Jax was 18 months old! He is really becoming a little boy now, with more words than I can count and a little big personality that loves to joke around.
We wanted to celebrate the occasion at our favorite baby- and kid-friendly restaurant, Wobble Café, but alas, they are closed Wednesday evenings. After bouncing off their door, we thought we’d head up to an Indian restaurant we had been wanting to try. A couple wrong turns later and we remembered a diner we have also wanted to check out. We have been lovingly calling it the “Nuclear Diner” since it’s just down the road from Indian Point, a nuclear power plant we are in denial about living so close to. What a pleasant surprise inside, though: a really friendly staff, great prices (even as far as diners go), and best of all, a big toy train! running around the middle. Perfect.
The all-important coloring placemat
Noodles and Meatballs: I can eat by myself!
This is my favorite: Jax makes this silly face to get huge laughs from us.
A new favorite pastime at the table is playing with ice.
About a year ago, Amazon had a special deal: 100 kids songs for 99 cents. I thought, “how bad can they be?” and decided it was worth a buck to find out. The answer? very bad: dorky karaoke-esque background music accompanying a kid’s choir butchering classics like “Little Miss Muffet.” I knew there was better kid’s music out there, but it took recommendations from fellow parents and friends and a bit of luck to find it. Here are some of our favorites:
We discovered this catchy rendition of the ABC song thanks to our friend Corry.
We have CD’s of local rock star Big Jeff on repeat in the car. His style is reminiscent of everything from Ween or The Beatles (think “Strawberry Fields”) to ska and hard rock. Jax is a huge fan (and his parents are too).
