KookyCulinary

I cannot believe it is almost the end of August already. Time really flies! School will start in just a couple of weeks and pretty soon after that will be Halloween. I still remember last year was the first Halloween that my 2 ½ year old went trick or treating. She wore a little princess costume. She looked so cute!

This year I have no idea what kind of costume she wants. I am sure that I can find some inspiration at HalloweenAdventure.com which has a huge selection of unique halloween costumes for both kids and adults. They have all sorts of Halloween costumes available from Superhero costumes to Pirate Costumes. This year, maybe I should pick matching Disney costumes for both myself and my daughter. We could both be princesses since we both love to dress up in our nicest clothes. I am sure that she will be so thrilled.

What about you? Have you decided on your Halloween costume yet? If not, go and check out HalloweenAdventure.com today. If you order between now and October 10 th, 2008, you can get 5% off your order by using the coupon code PPP05BLOG2008. Don’t forget to visit their blog to keep up with the latest news in the costume industry.

Remember these cookies that I made sometime ago?

I’ve had a few request for the royal icing recipe. So here it is. So sorry for posting it so late.

Royal icing is a smooth hard-drying icing. It works great for icing cookies and decorating cakes. Royal icing is traditionally made with egg white but personally I am a little apprehensive about eating raw egg white due to salmonella. So I substituted it with meringue powder. This is the Wilton meringue powder that I use. You should be able to get it at your local baking supply store.

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons meringue powder
4 cups icing sugar
6 tablespoon warm water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla or lemon juice
Food coloring

Mix all ingredients and beat with a mixer till stiff peaks form. It takes about 5 - 7 minutes. If necessary, add more powdered sugar or water to get the right consistency. This can be used to pipe a border around the cookie. Then to “flood” the center of the cookie, you need to thin it down by adding 1/2 tsp of water at a time till you get the right consistency. If the royal icing is not used immediately, keep it in an airtight container because royal icing hardens when exposed to air.  

I went grocery shopping last week and it cost me more than $100!! Sigh… everything is to be so expensive nowadays. It seems like the living expenses keep rising and yet the salary does not. For a single-income family like mine, it is definitely not good news. If this continues, I might just have to go back to the workforce when my girl goes to school. In the meantime, coupons are a lifesaver to me. I can stretch my money a lot more with coupons. After all, why should I pay full price when I can get the product at a savings.

One great place to get coupons is at Savings.com. They have all sorts of coupons available for an extensive list of popular merchants. Whether you need a discount coupon, free shipping coupon or promotional coupons, they have it all. Their currently available coupons include a $10 discount off every order of $50 or more at Drugstore.com and it even includes free shipping. With that Drugstore.com coupon code, not only do I save money, I also save on gas money since I do not have to go to the store. I am sure that many parents who have school-going children will be very interested in their 50% off school supplies coupons. I guess I better start looking for some grocery coupons for my grocery shopping tomorrow.