12 February 2014


Are you ready for Valentine's Day?  It's coming up fast!  My husband and I don't really celebrate it because we got engaged on February 11th, so we celebrate "Engagement Day" instead.  He surprised me with beautiful spring flowers and Hershey's kisses on my desk yesterday.  It was super special because it was my first day on my own at my new job.  I have taken a part-time job as the secretary at our church.  So the flowers kind of did double-duty and I loved it.

So even though Vday isn't a big deal for us, I do love making it special for my two daughters.  Lena will be six at the end of the month and Eva is three-and-a-half.  Holidays are so fun when you have little ones to celebrate them with!  Check out the end of my post for the cute homemade Valentines I made for their classmates and for a link to show you all the heart-shaped food I made for them last year.  But first I want to give you a fun Valentine's Day recipe.

Today was my turn to bring goodies to our weekly women's Bible study group.  I searched for some fun Valentine's Day breakfast pastry ideas because we meet in the morning.  I found this idea at Pillsbury.  You simply take regular canned cinnamon rolls, unroll each one and re-roll it into a heart shape.  Then bake as directed.  I took it one step further and added a bit of food coloring to the frosting to make it pink.

Sweetheart Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients:
1 can (13 oz.) Pillsbury refrigerated flaky cinnamon rolls with icing
Red food coloring

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Spray a 9” round cake pan with baking spray.

Carefully unwind each roll into a long strip of dough, leaving the center coiled. Coil the unrolled end of each strip in toward center, making two equal coils. Pull middle of strip down to make a point, forming heart shape; pinch point. Place in pan, points toward center.

Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown.

While rolls bake, warm frosting cups in microwave for about 15 seconds.  Pour them out into a small bowl and stir in one small drop of red food coloring. 

When rolls are done, cool 5 minutes before removing to cooling rack. Spread frosting over warm rolls.

Makes 8 rolls.

Note: Make sure you get the "flaky" kind of cinnamon rolls. Not the Grands, just the regular flaky kind.  The other kinds don't unroll.

 Simply unroll each roll.


 And roll the other end in towards the center.


 Pull down and pinch the bottom of the heart.


 Place them in the cake pan.  If any of the cinnamon stuff falls off onto the cutting board, pick it up and put it back on the rolls.  You don't want to lose any of the good stuff!


 This is how they come out of the oven.  Some of the hearts lose their pointy bottoms, but I think it's still pretty obvious that they are supposed to be hearts.


 The pink frosting tops them off.


 I also made super easy raspberry cream cheese danishes.  I will post that recipe sometime soon.

So here are the Valentines I made for my daughters' classmates.  For Eva's I did separate ones for the boys and the girls.  I happened to find two great ideas using Tootsie Pops, so I did them both.

 Butterflies for the girls.  I found this idea at Skip to My Lou.  She has the printable there, so all you have to do is print it out onto colored paper, cut it out, cut slits for the stick, and glue some googly eyes on the Tootsie Pop.  I wrote the "to" and "from" on the back.  


And snails for the boys.  I found this one at Zakka Life.  It's super easy too, just print it out, cut apart (they're four to a sheet), cut a slit for the stick, and tape it to the back.  I also did the "to" and "from" on the back.


These are the Valentines my daughter Lena gave out.  I got this idea from Keeping It Simple.  I used PrintMaster to create my own card instead of printing hers out.  Then I cut slits for the stick.  I couldn't get the sticks to stay in with the two slits, so I just used one and taped the stick to the back.  I don't have a Cricut, so my husband cut mustaches out of construction paper.  These brown ones were for the girls, and I forgot to get a pic of the boys'.  They were larger black handlebar-style.  Super cute.  You punch a hole in the mustache and tape it to the Tootsie Pop, then when the recipient eats it, they put the mustache on the stick and when the sucker is in their mouth, it looks like they have a mustache.  Kinda fun!

And instead of copying all the pictures and descriptions into this post, I am going to be lazy and give a link to my family blog to check out the fun things I did last year.  I made heart-shaped food at every meal for my daughters.  Toast and eggs for breakfast, pizza and hearts-and-arrows tomatoes for lunch, and heart-shaped mini meatloaves and carrots and pink mashed potatoes for dinner.  


These ideas might be coming too late for you to use this year, but keep them in mind for next year!

Happy Valentine's Day!


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7 comments:

  1. This salad is SO gorgeous...I am now a quinoa lover and can't wait to give this one a try for one of our upcoming meatless days!

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  2. Michelle Rushing HiltonFebruary 15, 2014 at 2:15 PM

    Beautiful salad. I just love the flavor combinations!

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  3. Looks easy and good, and between the edamame for protein, the quinoa with good carbs and protein, and all the veggies, it would make a complete dinner. And it's so colorful!

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  4. Please do and let me know how you liked it.

    ReplyDelete