Broken Glass, Lollipops, and MORE Lollipops!!!

Its taken me a while to get to posting something because I've been soooo smashed.  I've entertained family from Seattle, supported my daughter in her dance recital, and survived a garage sale.  Throughout these events, I've still managed to cook.

While Uncle George was in town, I had family over one evening for dinner.  Although I cheated and catered most of the food from Kanoa at Aloha Mondays (mahalo nui, Kanoa), I did manage to make a killer dessert, Broken Glass Dessert.

I used red, green and yellow jello for the "glass" and poundcake from Costco for the crust.  I realized I didn't have pineapple juice so I improvised with orange juice.  I find this recipe less complicated than other recipes since it uses Cool Whip. 

Before I had time to breathe, I had to get ready for D1's dance recital.  Without the luxury of favors from Southeast Asia (hair clips, hair pins, scrunchies, coin purses, etc.), I had to think of something.  D1 suggested lollipops.  I made 4 batches of lollipops for her to give away.  The tutti-frutti flavored li hing lollipops were shaped like kittycat heads (the other choice was hearts). 

The white thing in the middle is a li hing mui.  I fretted over how to attach labels to them (give credit where credit is due), and then I remembered something D2 had made at a Children's Day festival. It was a simple strip of scrapbooking paper with 2 holes@each end, which allowed a piece of ribbon to be threaded through.  I printed "Sweet Dancing!" and the important information (name of the giver) on the opposite end.

The finished product!

By the time the garage sale rolled around the following weekend, I had the lollipop process down.  This time, I made melon margarita li hing lollipops using the heart molds.

Now that I'm officially on vacation, I think I'll tackle some projects I've been meaning to try:  xiao long bao, scallion cakes, scallion buns, etc.  I've been getting lots of ideas from the Cooking-Of-Joy blog and the Appetite for China blog.  Joy and Diana have lots of ono food and gorgeous pics on their blogs.

And I before I sign off to go find my recipes, I had to post a pic of our newest family members, Sammy and Rain, English Mastiff puppies.  This picture was taken when they were 11 weeks old.  They are now 14 weeks old and full of fun.  I'm sure you'll be seeing more of them in the future.