Chick Pancakes

How about some "newly hatched" Chick Pancakes for Easter Breakfast?

They are so simple to make, the two secrets are to make sure that your pancake batter is nice and smooth (I like to make it in the blender), and you'll need three of these squeeze bottles...
Chicky Pancakes

Ingredients:
Your favorite pancake batter
3 plastic squeeze bottles
orange and yellow food coloring
chocolate chips (for eyes)


Directions:
Pour batter into squeeze bottles, about 3/4 full. Add a few drops orange food coloring to one bottle and a few drops yellow food coloring to another bottle. Shake both well.

Over medium heat (make sure that you only use medium or medium/low heat...it will keep the "egg" part of your chick white and still cook it), draw a cracked egg outline with white batter then add a half circle of yellow for the "head". Draw a triangle beak and feet. Let cook until just starting to bubble. When your outline starts to bubble, fill in with white and yellow batter...

When entire pancake starts to bubble, flip and cook on the reverse side (about 60-90 seconds).

Remove from pan and add two chocolate chips for eyes (my kids each wanted a little pile of chocolate chips on their plates to add their own eyes). Serve immediately.

We had fun playing with the extra batter and even made a few "easter eggs" to go along with the chicks. I hope you're having some fun family time this weekend! Happy Easter!

Frittata Primavera

It's Entree Week on the Real Women of Philadelphia! Do you have a great main dish recipe that uses new Philadelphia Cooking Creme? It could be worth $25,000! Come on over and join the Real Women of Philadelphia and you could be one of Paula Deen's next "cookin' stars"! Even if you don't have a recipe to submit, it's an amazing community full of great recipes and fun people.

I had so much fun whipping up this easy Frittata Primavera, if you're looking for a quick and fabulous brunch dish, this is it! Enjoy!

Frittata Primavera from Kraft

Ingredients:
3/4 lb. fresh asparagus, trimmed, cut into 1-inch lengths
1/3 cup chopped red peppers
8 eggs
2 Tbsp. water
1/2 tsp. salt
4 oz. (1/2 of 8-oz. pkg.) Philadelphia® Cream Cheese, cut into small cubes
Directions:
Heat oven to 350°F.
Cook and stir vegetables in 10-inch ovenproof skillet on medium-high heat 3 min. or until crisp-tender.
Beat eggs, water and salt in medium bowl with whisk until well blended. Sprinkle cream cheese over vegetables in skillet; cover with egg mixture and vegetables.
Bake 30 min. or until frittata is puffed and golden brown. Yield: 8 servings.

Variation: If you don't have an ovenproof skillet, cook vegetables in regular skillet as directed. Beat eggs, water and salt in medium bowl with whisk until well blended. Add vegetables and cream cheese; mix well. Pour into 9-inch pie plate sprayed with cooking spray. Bake as directed.

Creative Leftovers: A frittata is a great way to use up leftover vegetables and cheeses in your refrigerator. Cut soft cheese into small cubes or shred hard cheeses before mixing with other filling ingredients before pouring into prepared pie plate. Be creative and unafraid to try something new!

Push Pop Cakes

Ever since the Meringue Bake Shop created "Push Cakes", they've been taking the cupcake world by storm! I love this marriage of cupcakes and old-school push pops so we had to make our own... The hard part is finding the supplies, but I finally tracked some down! You can buy the little push pop containers wholesale here. Or, if you are just looking for a few, you can buy them here (more expensive but you can order fewer). I may or may not have just bought 200...which is a little excessive since I've been washing and re-using them. Update: a reader found them wholesale at Culinary Direct, it looks to be the cheapest if you want to buy 100. Thanks, Abby!These are SO EASY to make! Simply bake your favorite cupcake batter in mini muffin pans. Place one mini cupcake in each push pop tube... Top each with a swirl of your favorite icing. I used a Wilton 1M large star tip. Add some sprinkles... Top with another cupcake, another dallop of icing and more sprinkles. (note: the containers do come with lids but I left them off for the photo:)). The flavors we created in this batch were chocolate/chocolate fudge, mint chocolate chip and strawberry vanilla. My favorite was hands down the mint chocolate chip...yummy!

A huge thanks to Gourmet Dad for my fun new Push Pop Cake holder! We bought a 3-inch block of wood at the hardware store, drilled holes about 1/2" deep in it and spray painted it white. It looks so cute on the table, I'll be using it for all our parties and get-togethers this summer! Talk about a sweet centerpiece!