Jill's Recipe Box

Rainy Day food

2012-01-21T12:05:00.000-08:00

Well we still don't have much snow in Utah but it's been raining a lot. Rain= warm comfort food. I had found a recipe for Sweet chili from Real Mom Kitchen cookbook (sorry it's not posted online) but had to adapt a bit to make a smaller serving and because I didn't have some of the ingredients. Here is my version:

Sweet Chili

2 can Northern White Beans
1 can tomato paste
1 can condensed tomato soup
1/2 lb ground hamburger
1/2 purple onion
2 tsp chili powder
2/3 cup brown sugar

Brown hamburger and onion, until hamburger cooked through. In a stockpot combine hamburger/onion mix with undrained beans, paste, soup, chili powder, and brown sugar. Simmer for 30min.-1 hour. Stir occasionaly to ensure brown sugar mixes and doesn't burn at the bottom. This is a sweet chili and you can use 1/3 cup sugar instead if too sweet.

Texas Sheet Cake

(this recipe is adapted from Our Best Bites)

1 cup butter

1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

½ c. buttermilk
2 eggs, beaten
2 c. sugar
1 c. water
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 11 x 17 jelly roll pan.

Combine butter, chocolate, and water in a small saucepan. Heat until chocolate is melted. In a separate small bowl, sift flour and combine flour and baking soda. In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar, buttermilk, eggs, cinnamon, and vanilla. Add chocolate mixture. Add flour mixture and mix well. Pour into pan and bake 20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

Frosting:

6 Tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
½ c. butter
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 lb. powdered sugar

Combine milk, chocolate, and butter in a saucepan. Heat until bubbles form around the edge and butter is melted. Remove from heat and add powdered sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth. While icing is still warm, pour over cake. Allow cake and frosting to cool before cutting and serving.

Buttermilk Recipes

2012-01-12T18:02:00.000-08:00

I have rediscovered my love for using buttermilk in recipes. Here are some good things I have made the past 2 weeks.

Buttermilk Syrup (Butterbeer Syrup for HP fans)

(Adapted from Allrecipes)

1 1/2 cups white sugar

3/4 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup butter

2 tablespoons corn syrup

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In a saucepan, stir together the sugar, buttermilk, butter, corn syrup, and baking soda. Stir until sugar melts and then bring to a boil, and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, and stir in the vanilla.

Truck Stop Buttermilk Pancakes

(Recipe adapted from Allrecipes)

1 egg

1/4 cup milk

1 tablespoon butter, melted

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

3 teaspoons sugar

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, butter and buttermilk. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and sugar; stir into the wet ingredients just until blended. Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and coat with cooking spray. Pour 1/4 cupfuls of batter onto the skillet, and cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip with a spatula, and cook until browned on the other side. Continue with remaining batter.

Strawberry Soup

(adapted from Allrecipes)

3 cups strawberries

2 1/2 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup sugar

Puree all ingredients together in a blender. Serve cold. Strawberry soup is a great and different appetizer. My family first tried it on a Carribbean Cruise. This serves 10.

Buttermilk Banana Bread

(adapted from Mel's Kitchen Cafe)

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed bananas (I use about 3 average sized bananas)
4 tablespoons buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda

Grease and flour 1 large loaf pan (9 1/4 X 5 1/4-inch). In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs, bananas, buttermilk and vanilla until the batter is well mixed. Add in the flour, baking powder, salt and soda. Mix until well combined. Pour batter into greased bread pan and bake at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Buttermilk Cream Cheese Frosting

(adapted from Mel's Kitchen Cafe)

3 cups powdered sugar
4 oz cream cheese, softened
6 tablespoons buttermilk or milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix the softened cream cheese and buttermilk together until smooth. Add the vanilla and mix. Whisk in the confectioner’s sugar.

Celebrate 2012: The Epiphany

2012-01-06T13:36:00.000-08:00

The Epiphany, Twelfth Night, or Three Kings Day. I remember learning about this day in my French class but could only remember that you ate a cake with a trinket or bean in it and whomever got piece was king for the day.

via.

Here is what it really comes down too:
-This is the actual 12th day of Christmas and when Orthodox Christians celebrate the 3 Wise men finding Christ and presenting him with gifts.
-Baboushka or La Befana is a little old woman who tried to catch up with the wise men to visit Christ but didn't make it so she still wanders about looking and giving gifts.
- The Cake in France is called Gallette Des Rois and is made of puffed pastry and almond paste.

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So what to do to celebrate?

1. Make a cake of any kind or try your and at the Gallette Des Rois (above is a linked recipe).
2. Leave some Christmas decorations up until this day and reflect on what it all really means as you take them down.
3. Watch a Video of the 3 kings.
4. Give Christ 3 gifts, 3 resolutions about how you will be a better person, get rid of a bad habit, become more like Him, etc... 3 personal Frankincense, Gold, and Myrrh.
5. Read the story of the Other Wiseman by Henry Van Dyke, full text can be found here.

Why not make the holiday season last a bit longer. Celebrate Epiphany!

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Celebrate 2012: J.R.R. Tolkien Day

2012-01-03T11:14:00.000-08:00

January 3, 2012

To celebrate J.R.R. Tolkien day I made Shire Chicken Noodle Soup and "The One Roll to Rule Them All"...

Shire Chicken Noodle Soup:

1 Tbsp Butter

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped celery

4 (14.5 oz) can Chicken broth

1 (14.5oz) can Vegetable broth

1/2 lb cooked and chopped chicken breast

2 cups skinny egg noodles or 1 1/2 cup wide egg noodles

1 cup sliced carrots

1 tsp basil

1/2 tsp oregano

salt and pepper to taste

In a large stock pot melt butter and sautee celery and onion for 3-5 minutes until tender. Add chicken and stir. Pour in broths, carrots, basil, and oregano. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Salt and Pepper to taste. Makes approx. 12 cups/12 servings. Worth 1 Weight Watchers point plus per serving.

The One Roll, is a GIANORMOUS Cinnamon Roll... the recipe with really good instructions is found at Mel's Kitchen Cafe. I also used her Buttermilk Cream cheese frosting recipe.

For other ideas check this out: E-How's LOTR Party ideas.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Celebrate 2012: New Years Day

2012-01-01T17:52:00.000-08:00

I am going to be blogging ideas for every holiday/observance I want to celebrate in 2012. I believe that everyone needs some random fun in their lives and this is one way I intend to have some in mine.

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So first up: New Years Day.

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I spent my New Years Day writing resolutions, attending church, making turkey burgers, watching Star Wars, and trying out a new dessert.

Blackberry Dumplings
(This recipe is adapted from here)

1 lb or quart of fresh blackberries
2 cups water
1 cup white sugar
2 Tbsp butter
1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup Bisquick Heartsmart mix
4 Tbsp milk
2 Tbsp white sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix together blackberries, water, sugar, butter and cinnamon in a pot. Bring to a boil and boil for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile mix up dumplings: Bisquick, milk, sugar, and cinnamon. Mix with a fork until soft ball forms. After blackberries have boiled for 20 minutes drop dough by small spoonfuls into boiling mixture. Continue to boil for 10 more minutes. Do not stir. Remove from heat. Serve with homemade whipped cream or vanilla icecream.

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Naughty and Nice Christmas treats...

2011-12-11T20:18:00.000-08:00

These are some simple and terribly tasty Christmas treats. I love all things Mint and Chocolate and loved both of these. I ate them too fast to even take a picture!

Peppermint Marshmallow Fudge

1 can sweetened condensed Milk
1 package (12 oz) milk chocolate chips
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups marshmallows ( I used the new Jet Puff Peppermint Marshmallows)

In a microwave safe large bowl combine chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk. Microwave on high for 1 minute. Stir and microwave for an additional minute, stir until mixture is smooth and add vanilla. Mix in marshmallows and pour into lightly greased 8x8 pan. Allow to set, overnight if possible.

Tollhouse Chocolate Mint chip cookies

1 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup white sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup cocoa
2 cups flour
10oz bag of Tollhouse dark chocolate/mint chocolate chips

Beat butter with sugars, add vanilla, and then eggs-one at a time. Add baking soda and salt, mix in cocoa, and then flour. Stir in chocolate chips.

Spoon onto lightly greased baking sheet and bake at 325 degrees for 11 minutes. Allow to cool on pan for 2 minutes before moving to a cooling rake. Makes 3 dozen large cookies.

Vampires, Weddings, and Babies Oh My!

2011-11-19T13:45:00.000-08:00

We had a Breaking Dawn Twilight extravaganza at my house this weekend and what fun we had.

We went with Fondue which turned out to be a lot harder than I thought...it pays to read directions. Once I followed the directions it was actually quite easy and tasty.

Cheddar Fondue

5 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/3 cup flour
2 cups half and half
1 tsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp dry ground mustard

Shred cheese and carefully mix with flour until each pieces is coated. Use more flour if needed, set aside. Heat half and half, mustard, Worcestershire, and garlic powder to just before boiling. Turn heat to low to simmer and add cheese and flour mixture ONE cup at a time, stirring continually until each cup is melted before adding the next cup. Once mixture is melted and generally smooth, transfer to crockpot, or fondue pot as desired.

My inital mistake was that I didn't mix the flour and cheese well enough. Then I added too much of the cheese at once. It was going fine until it started looking too grainy and I thought to add milk. BAD IDEA. That made it too watery and the skim milk wouldn't mix with the half and half. By then the cheese had also been cooking too long at too high a temperature and turned into a blobby mess sitting in orange colored milk-water. GROSS. Luckily for me my roommate had more cheese and saved us.

Other menu items included and Swiss fondue from Annicka, Butterfly shrimp, broccoli, french and brown bread, green apples, pretzels, and crackers for dipping. We had a chocolate fountain with strawberry and regular marshmallows, pecan cookies, cinnamon bears, gummy bears, angel food cake, pretzels, berries, and lots of fruit to dip in it. Thu made Red velvet cakepops, and cupcakes with darling Breaking Dawn themed cupcake wrappers and white chocolate chess pieces on top.

To make-and-take before the movie we had a popcorn bar with multiple themed flavors:

Spicy Breaking Headboard Popcorn

1 tsp paprika

2 tsp salt

1 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp ground red pepper or cayanne pepper

Sweet Jacob popcorn

1/3 cup white sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

Volturi Italiano Popcorn

1 tsp dried italian seasoning

1 tsp garlic powder

1/3 cup parmesean cheese

Bloody Vampire Popcorn

melted butter mixed with red food coloring

salt

Orange Bread Pudding with Cranberry Syrup

2011-11-16T11:38:00.000-08:00

If you are looking for a classic holiday flavored brunch dish, this one is pretty tasty. I changed up a orange french toast recipe to make it into a bread pudding.

ORANGE BREAD PUDDING

10-12 slices day old bread
4 large eggs
1 2/3 cups orange juice
1/3 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
Chopped Pecans (optional)

Beat together egss, sugar, milk, orange juice, vanilla, and nutmeg. Cut bread with kitchen shears into 12 pieces per slice. Grease a 9x13in pan. Fill pan with bread pieces. Pour egg and orange juice mixture over bread. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Sprinkle with chopped pecans and bake an additional 5-10 minutes until browned and eggs cooked through.

CRANBERRY SYRUP

1 cup fresh cranberries
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup water

Bring cranberries, sugar, and water to a boil, stirring continually. Cranberries will begin to pop. As berries pop mash with your stirring spoon. When mixture begins to thicken, remove from heat and pour thru a fine mesh seive into a heatproof bowl. Mash cranberries with a spoon to release as much juice as possible. Makes 3/4-1 cup of syrup. Save mashed cranberries for cranberry relish if desired for turkey dinner.

Spooky Chex Mix

2011-10-29T14:09:00.000-07:00

3 1/2 cups Rice Chex cereal
3 1/2 cups Corn Chex cereal
8 oz vanilla bark or 1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup chocolate chips
2 cups reeses pieces (10.5 oz bag)
3 oz halloween pretzels
1 1/2 cup salted peanuts

Melt vanilla bark in 30 second intervals, stirring in between each interval, until smooth (mine took about 90 seconds). Pour over rice chex and mix until coated. Spread rice chex onto a wax paper covered cookie sheet. Try and spread into a single layer. Refridgerate for 5 minutes.

Melt chocolate chips in 30 second intervals, stirring in between each interval, until smooth (mine took about 90 seconds). Pour over corn chex and mix until coated. Spread chex onto a wax paper covered cookie sheet in a single layer. Refridgerate 15 minutes.

Break apart each chex as needed into a large bowl. Stir in pretzels, reeses pieces, and peanuts.

Autumn Tarts

2011-10-24T20:41:00.000-07:00

I had a bunch of mushrooms I didn't know what to do with and found this great mini-mushroom tart recipe...

Mini Mushroom Tarts

Tart dough:

2 1/2 cups flour, sifted
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup cold butter
1/3 cup sour cream
1 egg, slightly beaten

Sift flour and add salt to a large bowl. Cut in butter (I grate mine with a cheese grater and then use a pastry cutter or a fork to mix with flour) until mixture is crumbly. Stir in sour cream and slightly beaten egg.

Grease a mini muffin pan. Form dough into 1 inch balls. Press each ball into muffin pan, covering the bottom and sides of each cup. Bake at 350 degress for 12-14 minutes, until golden brown.

While tart cups are baking make Mushroom filling:
3/4 lb mushrooms, diced ( I used about 7 Large mushrooms)
1 bunch green onions, diced
1/4 cup butter
pepper to taste
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup flour
1 cup whipping cream

Dice mushrooms and green onions. Melt butter in pan on stove and sautee mushrooms and green onions. Sprinkle with flour, salt, and pepper. Mix together and then add cream, stirring continually while cooking on the stove. Cook until cream thickens. Remove from heat and spoon into baked tart shells. Yeilds 36-40 tarts.

I also made a dessert tart today that I have previously posted: Pear Tart. (Sorry for the crappy picture on this one...it is really tasty and stays together better than it looks!)

Bat wreath

2011-10-07T17:27:00.000-07:00

I had seen this wreath on eighteen25 and wanted to make one of my own...

I used a 10 inch wreath and it took about 1 hour to make total. I did not spray paint my wreath as other sites suggest, just careful winding and didn't have any trouble keeping it covered. I used the Pebbles bat from the Silhouette store and cut out several sizes. I attatched the bats with glue-dots. For ribbon I used scraps left from my Vintage Halloween Picture Banner project. I am really happy with how it turned out overall!

linked up to:

Vintage Halloween decorations

2011-10-07T14:08:00.000-07:00

I made this vintage halloween picture garland as well as a little pennent garland to change up my halloween decorations this year.

It was super simple and cheap...

Google Old or vintage halloween pictures. You will get a ton of these creepy old pictures of people in their halloween costumes. I saved a bunch and printed them out at home on photo paper all as 3x4 pictures. I had some random ribbon on hand and picked some out that was halloween-ish, as well as a tiny skelton key I had to tie to the ends. I used baker's twine in white for the main string, cut up the pictures and just taped them to the twine.

For the pennent I used Diecuts with a View Halloween paper stack that came out this season. They had a sheet of paper that was printed as pennents already and I just cut that apart and strung together with twine and tape. Sewing them together would also be easy and cute but my sewing machine wasn't out.

For the candle just glue some lace around a votive.

I bought the Witches picture canvas at Bear Lake Raspberry days a few years back. The basic idea is pretty simple though to print a picture on fabric or canvas and then glitter spot a few things for fun.

The owl was a thrift find.

My next addition (as seen on eighteen25 and Pinterest):

linked up to:

Chicken and Bacon Artichoke Pasta

2011-10-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

This is a recipe adapted from Our Best Bites. I adapted rather than completed exactly because I needed a bigger dish and was missing some of the ingredients they used. Please click the link to see their exact recipe.

One thing I did make exactly was their Guiltless Alfredo Sauce.

2 cups of grilled and chopped chicken breast.
1 recipe of Guiltless Alfredo Sauce.
2.5 oz package of real bacon bits (found with the salad dressing)
1 (14oz) jar (without oil) of Artichoke hearts, drained and rough chopped.
1 1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
grated Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper
12 oz of bowtie pasta
1/2 tsp onion powder

1. Grill chicken (2 cups is 2 breasts) and set aside to cool. When cool cut into small 1inch pieces with kitchen shears. Sprinkle with onion powder and set aside.

2. While chicken is cooling drain and chop artichoke hearts (I cut these with kitchen shears too) and shred Parmesan cheese for the sauce.

3. Boil pasta in large pot and make the Guiltless Alfredo Sauce at the same time. When sauce has thickened pasta should be ready to drain.

4. Drain pasta and return to large pot. Pour in sauce. Add chicken, bacon bits, artichoke hearts, and 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese. Salt and Pepper to taste.

5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spoon pasta and sauce mixture into a 9x13inch pan. Sprinkle remaining 1 cup mozzarella cheese and grate Parmesan to taste on top of pasta.

6. Cover with Aluminum foil and bake for 15 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 5 minutes until cheese is bubbly and browning.

Serve with bread, or if you really love Parmesan try Elise's easy breadsticks.

Bonus is that if you divide this pan into 15 servings it is only 6 Weight Watchers points a serving.
1 serving is 3/4 cup.

Berry Cupcakes

2011-09-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

This is a recipe I adapted from the Strawberry Cake by the Cake Doctor.

1 french vanilla or yellow cake mix
2 cups mixed berries
1 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
4 eggs

Puree mixed berries. Beat together berries, oil, milk, and egg. Mix in cake mix. Bake as three 8-inch rounds, or 30 cupcakes at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes.

Tastes awesome with Cream cheese icing: 1/4 cup butter at room temp, 1 (8oz) package cream cheese at room temp, 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 tsp vanilla--whip all ingredients together. Normally I would frost with the cream cheese frosting and top with a fresh berry.

I served mine as Diva cupcakes to represent Rachel Berry on the show Glee. Since she loves gold stars I frosted mine with vanilla frosting, sprinkled with Wilton's Gold glitter sprinkles and topped with a gold star.

Krystal made the awesome Slushee cup cakes as inspired by here.

Tastes like fall...

2011-09-09T17:40:00.000-07:00

Some recipes I have made recently that taste a bit like fall:

Orange-Cran Chicken Salad (recipe adapted from the Our Best Bites cookbook)

2 cups chopped cooked and cooled chicken breast (2 chicken breasts or 1 can chicken. I think at Thanksgiving left over turkey would be perfecto for this recipe as well.)
1/2 cup chopped celery
3 chopped green onions
grated orange peel zest (from 1 medium orange )
1/2 cup craisins
1/2 cup mayo
1/4 cup jellied cranberry sauce
1 tsp grainy dijon mustard
juice from 1/2 half orange (i just cut the orange I grated in half and gave 1/2 a big squeeze)
pecans (optional)
rolls

Mix together chicken, celery, green onions, orange zest, and craisins. In a seperate bowl whisk together mayo, cranberry, mustard, and orange juice. Pour mayo mixture over chicken mixture and stir to coat. Refridgerate for at least an hour. Add chopped pecans if desired and serve sandwiched in rolls. Serves 12 rolls.

Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies (recipe adapted from the 1976 Betty Crocker's Cookbook)

3/4 cup shortening (I know shortening is bad...I'm over it)
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup water
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup raisins
1 cup chocolate chips
3 cups rolled oats

Mix together shortening, sugars, egg, water, and vanilla. Add salt, cinnamon, baking soda, cloves. Add flour. Add oats. Stir in raisins and chocolate chips. Form into balls and space 1 in apart. Bake at 350 degrees for 13 minutes on a greased pan. Allow to sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes after baking to set. Cool on cooling rack. Makes 30 large cookies (These cookies are crisp and chewey. You need the raisins to balance the sugar).

Strawberry Daquiri Bundt Cake

2011-08-25T16:25:00.000-07:00

Cake:
1 strawberry cake mix
1/4 cup lime juice and 3/4 cup water OR 1/2 cup limeade and 1/2 cup water
1/3 cup oil
3 eggs

Mix together ingredients with mixer for 2 minutes. Grease bundt pan well and bake at 350 degree for 35 minutes until toothpick come out clear.

Strawberries: slice up 2-3 cups of strawberries and sprinkle with 1-2 Tbsp sugar. Stir and let sit for an hour while cake cooks and cools.

Lime Glaze:
1 Tbsp melted butter
2 cups powdered sugar
2-3 Tbsp lime juice

Stir together and add more juice or powdered sugar as needed to achieve desired consistency.

Slice up bundt when cool, top with strawberries, and drizzle with glaze. (Note: This cake has a subtle lime flavor, if you were looking for a more intense lime flavor I would probably change the balance of water and lime in the cake.)

Zucchini Cookies

2011-08-16T19:37:00.000-07:00

Camille made some Zucchini cookies....tis the season of the great zucchini.

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups grated zucchini
3 1/2 cups oats
1 cup of mix in: rasins, or nuts, or chocolate chips and/or butterscotch chips ( I prefer chocolate and butterscotch chips)

Cream butter and sugar together. Add and beat in eggs and vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, and salt. Add grated zucchini, oats, and mix in (ie. chocolate chips). Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Makes a ton of large cookies!

Camping Cassoulet

2011-08-14T15:52:00.000-07:00

This is an easy & filling recipe that we have eaten as a family while camping (and at home) for as long as I can remember.

1-2 cups boneless chicken, cut into pieces
1 medium onion or 1/2 of a large onion, chopped into pieces
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Tbsp veg. oil
1 large or 2 small cans Busch's baked beans
1/2 lb kielbasa sausage, cut into 1//2 inch pieces
1/2 tsp crushed dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Sautee oil with onion, garlic, and chicken pieces until chicken browned and onion is tender. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Oriental Chicken Salad

2011-08-14T10:57:00.000-07:00

Applebee's oriental chicken salad

Dressing:

3 Tbsp Honey
1 1/2 Tbsp rice vinegar
1/4 cup mayo
1 tsp dijon mustard
1/8 tsp sesame oil

Whisk all ingredients together until well corporated.

Salad:
2 cups Romaine lettuce
1 cup fresh spinach
1 cup red cabbage
1 cup napa cabbage
1 carrot, grated
1 green onion

toasted almonds
chow mein noodles

Coarsly chop romaine lettuce. Finley chop cabbages. Grate carrot and slice green onion. Combine all salad ingredients. Sprinkle with toasted almonds and chow mein noodles.

Chicken: I used Tysons pre-grilled chicken strips. They are quick, easy, and have good flavor. Any grilled chicken will work, or to make it more authentic to applebees use breaded chicken strips.

Note: This recipe and dressing are for a "large dinner salad"... when we made this for a family of 6 eating we decided to multiply the recipe by 4. We didn't even eat 1/2 of it and we had huge portions. Instead of mixing in the dressing we added it to our personal plates as desired. In reality 1 salad could most likely feed 2 people.

This recipe is so tasty and easy to make.

Homemade Pancakes

2011-08-08T11:34:00.000-07:00

I am loving Fiber One's new Buttermilk pancake mix.

I have made them several different ways including,

Blueberry:
1 cup mix
1/2 cup blueberries
1/3 cup water
1 container Brown Cow Blueberry Greek Yogurt

(I liked this way because it packed some extra protein and was more filling. Had great flavor and made 4 -5 large pancakes which was easily 2 servings. Each serving is 3 weight-watchers points plus points).

Banana:
1 cup mix
1 smashed over-ripe banana
2/3 cup water

(This made 5 medium sized pancakes that were 2 WW P+ each and I served them with some spray 'I can't believe it's not butter' and some sugar and nutmeg mix sprinkled on top).

Even plain and made with 1 cup mix and 2/3 cup water they are delicious and only 2 WW P+ each. Of course you can be creative and mix in whatever sounds tasty or try making the blueberry or banana with a pancake from scratch mix. Just recognize the balance of yogurt and other wet ingredients may need to be adjusted.

Happy breakfast (lunch or dinner)!! :)

Dinner Group Fruit Salad

2011-07-28T20:49:00.000-07:00

Made this fruit salad for my dinner group tonight....possibly the easiest thing in the world.

Ingredients:
a bunch of cut up fruit
1 can peach pie filling

yup that is it. To be more specific I sliced and diced up 3 kiwi, 2 bananas, a bunch of green grapes, about 10 strawberries, and about 1/2 cup of blueberries.

It was tasty and easy and got good reviews from the group.

Adapted from this recipe.

Pepperoni rollups

2011-07-27T19:38:00.000-07:00

These are super simple and tasty.

1 package crescent roll dough
2 sticks of string cheese
32 slices of pepperoni
italian seasoning
garlic seasoning

(I used the turkey pepperoni, low-fat string cheese, and reduced cal crescent dough so they were 3 points a piece on weight watchers)

Roll out dough into the triangles. Sprinkle with italian seasoning. Place 4 slices of pepperoni on each triangle. Cut the string cheese into quarters. Place on quarter string cheese in the center of fat portion of the triangle on pepperoni and roll from wide to skinny forming a stuffed crescent roll. Sprinkle with italian seasoning and garlic seasoning.

When all 8 are rolled bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Dip in marinara sauce if desired.

Recipe adapted from Taste of Home. Check it out for more detailed instructions and a picture.

Harry Potter and the Horcrux Hunt

2011-07-17T13:39:00.000-07:00

For the Harry Potter 7.2 premier this past weekend I decided to to an all out final fling. At my party in November for part 1 I focused on the Hallows, so this time it was all about destroying Horcruxes.

There were six different challenges you had to complete, one for each horcrux. Everyone had a lanyard representing their house and when eat challenge was complete you could check it off by covering the number with that horcrux's sticker. There was also a prize at each horcrux for people to take home. By completing the challenges you were entered into a raffle.

Diary Challenge: Hermione has been petrified by the monster in the chamber of secrets. The only way to reverse the petrification is to grow Mandrakes. In Herbology we are re-potting the mandrakes today. In 1 minute try to dig up and repot all of the mandrakes (24) to help Hermione while Ron and Harry try to save Ginny from the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets and destroy Tom Riddle’s Diary. When the challenge is complete make sure to collect your own quill and diary.

I got the pot signs from here and the babies from here. I wish I had earmuffs but didn't have time to find any (plus it's July!!)... this was a pretty funny challenge. The favors were little covered notebooks and a small quill tied together with a leather string.

Ring Challenge: Throw on a witch hat and the object of the game is to toss a ring on your opponents hat. Dumbledore has destroyed the ring but make sure to gather a resurrection stone magnet or hair clip before moving on to the next challenge.

I saw a game like this in college and you can actually buy an official one online, but I just made my own using black posterboard for the hats, and glowstick bracelets for the rings. It was hilarious!! I made the resurrection stone magnets by glueing the symbol onto flattened dark green marbles and then glueing those onto magnets using regular tacky craft glue. They turned out awesome. The hair clips were the same but small and clear, glued onto bobby pins from oriental trading company.

Locket Challenge: The Locket is at the bottom of the bowl and to collect it you need to drop marbles at nose level into the bowl. Take turns with your partner and the person with the most marbles in the cup with the locket wins! Make sure to pick up one Harry Potter flair when you complete the challenge.

This was inspired by a minute to win it game called, "Drop, Sink, Clink"... I picked up the locket on clearance from Hot Topic and used 3 candle votives in the bottom of a plastic bucket. Instead of quarters we dropped flattened marbles. I got the Harry Potter flair buttons from Mud in My Blood on etsy. She has amazing selections of Harry Potter stuff, check her out, and "like" her on facebook for discount coupons codes.

Diadem Challenge: The Ravenclaws are wise and clever. Complete the word search and “Who Said” quiz to complete the challenge. Make sure to grab a book mark since those Ravenclaws love to read!

I found all of the quotes for "Who said" by searching favorite character's quotes online and from here. The word search is one that Kellie and I worked on months ago by altering one we had found online. My sister weaved the bookmarks.

Hufflepuff Cup Challenge: When Harry, Ron, and Hermione searched the LeStrange’s vault at Gringotts for the Hufflepuff cup everything they touched multiplied. Split into 2 teams and play the memory game. At the end of the game enjoy a butterbeer or Dark Mark cupcake! Hufflepuff’s apparently love cupcakes.

How shall I prepare thee on this summer day?
Unfrosted, thou art sweet;
Frosted, thou art divine.
Food of the gods,
Like ambrosia to me.
Each bite:
Perfection!
Unusual though it may be,
Forever shall I sing thy praises.
Fantastic; most splendid! My cupcake are thee!

I can't remember where I got this poem SORRY if it was from you! To make the memory game I found all of the pictures at the Leaky Cauldron and picked out the ones that related to horcruxes. For the Dark Mark cupcakes I made picks with a dark mark I found on google and the cupcakes were just triple chocolate with buttercream frosting and black sprinkles. The butterbeer cupcakes were catered by my friend Thu and were absolutely incredible. She picked up her recipe here.

Nagini Challenge: When most people have completed the challenges we will re-enact the slaying of Nagini by Neville. Grab the sorting hat and the sword of Gryffindor and give it a try!

For this challenge I picked up a sword from oriental trading company, grabbed my sorting hat, and altered a Dragon pinata to be a snake by cutting off its legs and covering it with dark green crepe paper.

Mini Cheesecakes

2011-07-05T08:58:00.000-07:00

These cheesecakes are super easy, pretty quick, and absolutely delicious.

2 (8oz) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
2 eggs
3/4 cup white sugar
2 Tbsp flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp lemon juice
vanilla wafers

Line muffin tin with liners and place a vanilla wafer in the bottom of each (should make 18). Whip cream cheese for 2 minutes to make lighter and fluffy. Add in sugar and beat. Stir in flour and baking powder. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix throughouly. Add vanilla and lemon juice.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Fill each liner evenly. Bake for 15 minutes and allow to cool completely (about 30 min in pan and then for as long as you can wait in the refridgerator--this is hard to do but they are so much better cold I promise!)... Middles will sink down creating a perfect spot for berries, whip cream, any topping you desire.

Quick and Easy Key Lime pie

2011-07-01T14:39:00.000-07:00

This is an adapted recipe from "Our Best Bites" cookbook. It was easy, light, and a refreshing summer treat.

4 large limes squeezed for a little over 1/2 cup juice.
5 egg yolks (save the egg whites for an omlet in the morning or something!)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
green food coloring
1 graham cracker crust (I used a store bought)
Whipped cream topping

Whip together egg yolks, lime juice, and condensed milk. Stir in food coloring (we had neon food coloring which looked perfect) for desired "limey" look. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour filling into crust and bake for 15 minutes. Allow to cool, best if cooled in refridgerator for a couple of hours. Top with whipped cream.

Classic Apple Pie

2011-05-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

I am trying to use up ingredients I have around the house before I leave for Cambodia next week so last night I looked at my pre-made pie crusts, and the 3 apples I had laying around and decided to just go for a simple apple pie. I had never made an apple pie with a top crust before. After searching around I found this recipe on allrecipes.com. The original recipe was for apple pie filling you could freeze and use as needed, thus it is for 5 pies. I scaled it down and adjusted a bit and this is what I came up with...

3 large apples, sliced thinly (peel as desired, I didn't)
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
3/4 cup white sugar
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 cups water

Thinly slice the apples and mix with lemon juice in a bowl. In a pot mix together dry ingredients and add water. Whisk until boiling and boil for 2 minutes. Stir in apples and bring to boil again. Turn down heat, and simmer 6 minutes until thickened and apples are soft. Cool for 20-30 minutes.

Make (or in my case roll out) pie crust into pie dish. Pour in filling (it's okay if it is still warm) and cover with top crust, cutting slits. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and bake for 25-35 minutes until crust is browned on top and golden on bottom (if you have a glass pie dish and can see it of course).

For extra flavor and presentation I whisked one egg with 1 Tbsp cinnamon-sugar mix and brushed the top of the pie with mixture before baking.

Butterfly Decoration

2011-04-21T14:17:00.000-07:00

I had so much fun with the USA felt pillow, I decided to once again follow up on a project I liked online. I had recieved the beautiful Madeline Collection by Prima in my Coordinates Collection kit and had been wondering what to do with the pretty little butterflies, when I saw this on Write Click Scrapbook...

Cheryl Overton and put the collection together and I loved it. So here is my version (which just so happens to match my wood butterflies I picked up last year!)...

The quote is one by the Persian poet Hafiz, "Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you."

Yay for Spring!

New 52: New wizarding recipes

2011-04-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

For my New activity of the week Kellie joined me to make up some recipes from "The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook" by Dinah Bucholz.

There is some seriously strange stuff in there, and some stuff we can't legally make in America (Blood pudding anyone?!) but we found 3 recipes to try and share...

1. Meat and Potatoes Pies
(I altered this recipe so it was faster...the original took a total of 3 hours not including the 2 hours for the pie dough to chill)...

6 oz chuck steak, diced into small pieces (I used stew meat and cut each piece with scissors into 3 or 4 smaller pieces).
1 small onion, finely diced
Tbsp minced garlic (this is something I added)
1 red potato, peeled and diced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1/2 tsp sage
1 1/2 cup chicken broth
2 Tbsp veg. oil
2 Tbsp flour

pie crust (The book has a nice recipe for pie crust in it, but needing to be quick I buy premade crusts
1 egg

Heat oil in a skillet and brown meat chunks. I browned on both sides until meat was nearly cooked through for about 10 minutes. Remove meat into a bowl to rest and add onions and garlic to skillet to sautee until brown. Re-add meat and sprinkle with flour. Pour over chicken broth and mix together. Bring to a simmer and cover, stirring occasionally for about 15 minutes. Add carrots and potatoes, and sage and mix together. Continue to simmer for about 15-25 minutes or until potatoes and carrots become softer and mixture is thickened. Stir every couple of minutes so gravy doesn't burn to bottom.

While simmering cut pie dough into nine 6 inch circles. Grease a muffin tin and fill each cup with round of dough. Fill generously with meat and potato filling when done. Cut nine 4 inch circles with slits in top to create top crust. Brush top crust with a mixture of 1 egg beaten with 1 Tbsp water. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

2. Glazed Carrots

This recipe was not my favorite, I think it needed brown sugar or something added, but then again, I was never much a fan of cooked carrots.

3. Canary Custard Cremes

Cookie:
2 1/4 cup flour
1 small package cook and serve vanilla pudding
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick butter at room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together flour, pudding mix, baking powder, and salt. In a seperate bowl mix together butter and powdered sugar until fluffy. This takes about 5 minutes and frequent scraping of the bowl. Add egg and vanilla to butter mixture and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture and mix until crumbly. Add milk and form into a dough. Roll dough into one inch balls and space about 1 1/2 inches apart. Press flat and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 8 minutes on bottom rack and then 8 minutes on middle rack in oven. Cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes and then remove to cooling rack.

There is a filling recipe in the book for a basic vanilla frosting. I had a canned buttermilk frosting on hand and used those instead as the filling between two sandwiched cookies.

Easter Peep crafts...

2011-04-15T17:34:00.000-07:00

We already know how much I love Peeps... I've seen a lot of ideas and when I saw these plastic eggs at Joann's that perfectly matched the rainbow of peeps, I decided to try making a garland. The cheap plastic eggs have holes in the top and bottom so threading them together is super easy. The peeps are a lot easier to thread if they are stale.

Some other fun Peep ideas I have seen online...

Happy Easter Peeps gift packaging at joy ever after.

Homie Peeps sign from Flamingo Toes

Treat toppers along with LOTS of decorating ideas at Shindig Parties

Scrapbook Crop

2011-04-02T22:23:00.000-07:00

For my New:52 moment of the week I decided to host an all day scrapbook crop at my house. I set up 4 table stations and had a good turn out (I was so busy scrapping I didn't take pictures of those of us there!!) and we ate lots of good food. I had it start around 10 am with some giant Costco muffins, juice and the first session of LDS General Conference on TV. We took a lunch break at noon for some chicken salad croissant sandwiches, grapes, fresh pineapple, and skinny cow icecream sandwiches. We then watched the 2nd session of conference. My sister and I decided to keep going and scrapped our way through the 2 final four NCAA tourney games and some pizza. Overall it was a productive day of eating and watching TV (if you can call that productive?!) and of course getting a lot of scrapbooking done. Here are the layouts I completed... (sorry for the poor pictures, I was in a hurry to take them all before my camera battery died). It was a fun day and I hope to host a crop again soon, it is always more fun to scrap with other people.

NEW 52...a recipe and a confession

2011-03-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

I had a lofty goal of eating vegetarian for a week for my New experience. Laughing out loud right about now. That was an epic fail. I have no self control apparently. Plus I'm blaming "Fat Tuesday" in the mix, because I can.

Something I did make and liked was a bean salsa-salad. Sorry there are no exact measurements, it really is to taste...

Bean Salsa-Salad

Yellow or White corn (1 cup)
Garbonza Beans/Chickpeas (1 cup, 1 can was too much)
Black beans (1 cup of rinsed canned beans)
2-3 Avacados, chopped to small chunks
Tomatoes (I only had 1 Roma, but would use 2 in the future), chopped into small pieces
1/2 onion (I used sweet Walla Walla, because they are good, I would also recommend a purple one), finely diced
chopped cilantro
lime juice (I think I ended up using 1/4 cup mixed with 1-2 Tbsp sugar)

Tossed all in a bowl and served with chips, pretty good stuff.

So my confession...I ate 1 vegetarian meal a day, but couldn't do it for every meal, all week, like I had planned. Once I decided to do it all I wanted was a hamburger and I caved. oh well, I would never be a good vegetarian. BUT I was more concious of what I was eating and tried to be as fresh and healthy as possible.

About This Project: New52 is a project started by Peppermint and Christine and it ..."invites participants to live outside the box a little bit more and try things outside their comfort zone. Sometimes the “new” will present itself to you unwittingly, other times you’ll be seeking it out. My hope is that we can all become inspired by one another’s adventures – perhaps gain the courage to try someone else’s new thing ourselves. Don’t worry if you’re getting a late start or if you miss a week here and there. New52 isn’t about making a life-altering change every week, it’s about keeping an open mind and embracing little changes in your life." (Copied from Peppermint's blog)

To see more of my New 52 experiences check it out on my other blog here. For more recipes I have discovered during New 52 click the New:52 label and explore away, thanks for playing! What new thing have you tried this week?!?

New 52 recipe: Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad

2011-03-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

I made this salad for Rachel's bachelorette party yesterday, and since I had never made it before it is my new 52 for the week...

This was actually a lot easier than I imagined and quite good.

Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad

1 package (10-12 oz) uncooked pasta (butterfly, rotini, or macaroni)

3 oz or 2/3 cup real bacon bits (10 slices of bacon cooked and crumbled)

1 cup mayonnaise

1 package (3 Tbsp) dry ranch dressing mix

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp garlic salt

1 large tomato, finely diced

1 can sliced olives

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (I prefer medium or sharp for the flavor to reach over the seasoning)

Boil pasta 10-12 minutes until al dente. Drain and set aside to cool. Mix together mayo, ranch mix, garlic powder and salt in a small bowl. Dice tomato. Add to pasta the tomato, olives, bacon, and cheese, tossing together. Pour over and stir in mayo dressing mix. Refrigerate for 1 hour to overnight. Has approx. 12 servings, 1 cup each.

Tagalongs

2011-01-23T21:37:00.000-08:00

It's girl scout cookie time and instead of buying some Camille and I decided to make our own. She whipped up some Tagalongs and I made some Samoas which I have posted about before.

Tagalongs (Peanut Butter Patties)

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar. Mix in flour, baking powder and salt. Add vanilla and milk. Roll dough into a log and refridgerate until firm. Slice into cookies. Bake cookies for 11-13 minutes, until bottoms and the edges are lightly browned and cookies are set. Immediately after removing cookies from the oven, use a small spoon to make a depression in the center of each cookie. Cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Fill with filling:

Filling:
1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1-2 cups chocolate chips

In a small bowl, whisk together peanut butter, confectioners’ sugar, salt and vanilla. When the mixture has come together, heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds until it is soft. Spoon on top of cooked cookies. Chill cookies with filling for 20-30 minutes, or until the peanut butter is firm. Melt chocolate chips and dip chilled cookies into chocolate, let excess drip off, and place on a sheet of parchment paper to let the chocolate set up.

Marv n Joe

2011-01-21T14:13:00.000-08:00

One of my personal favorite lunch foods at Utah State University... and one of the only ways I will eat tomatoes.

Thick white or wheat bread
garlic butter
olive oil
balsalmic vinegar
provolone cheese
tomato slices
parmesean cheese

Butter bread. Layer 2 tomato slices on top. Drizzle with vinegar and oil. Cover with provolone cheese. Sprinkle with parmesean. Toast until cheese bubbles and edges brown. Enjoy!!

For official step by step pictured instructions check out this article from the Utah Statesman.

Go Aggies!

New 52: Week 2 -Thu's Guacamole

2011-01-16T13:28:00.000-08:00

No more store bought guac or salsa mixed with avacados....this is the only way to do it.

3 ripe avacados
2 Roma tomatos
1/3 white onion
juice of a lime
spoonful of sugar
fresh cilantro
dash of salt

Cut avacado in half, remove pit, and cut into small 1 inch pieces before removing from avacado shell. Scoop out pieces. Dice tomato and onion into small pieces. Add to asvacados and mix together smashing about 1/2 of the avacado chunks in the process. Stir in lime juice and sugar to taste. Add some salt. Chop up fresh cilantro and stir in before serving.

New: 52-Week 1--Aunt Jeunie's Chocolate and Custard Pie

2011-01-08T15:54:00.000-08:00

This is a recipe from my Great Aunt and I decided to try it out for my sister's birthday since she doesn't like cake.

1 deep dish pie crust unbaked

3 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 cups scalded milk

1 cup chocolate chips

2 Tbsp. milk

Prepare crust. Lightly beat together eggs, sugar, salt, and nutmeg. Scald 2 cups milk (heat just until the boiling point). Stir milk into egg mixture. Bake at 425 degrees for 25-30 minutes until center sets and knife comes out without liquid on it. Cool. Melt chocolate and add 2 Tbsp milk. Spread over custard pie.

This is my first recipe for New: 52. Exploring new things while cooking was one of my 11 for '11 goals this year and New:52 is a challenge to do something new every week and tell about it. I decided to combine the 2 together!

Organized and Inspired...

2011-01-02T16:01:00.000-08:00

The wonderful Emilie has created an event called Organized and Inspired.

Super excited about this because we all need a little more organization in our lives. I know that when my scrap space is clear I can get a lot more done and the inspiration flows a little more freely. I am excited to follow Emilie on this organization journey and hope you take advantage too!

Happy scrapping and crafting!

Elementary School PB Bars

2010-12-29T21:11:00.000-08:00

Remember in Elementary when they had peanut butter bars with chocolate frosting for the dessert during lunch? That was my favorite day of the week.

Well this recipe comes pretty darn close to it...

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups oats
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat to 375 degrees. Cream butter, peanut butter, and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla. Sift together dry ingredients and mix into peanut butter and sugar mix.

Spread into a 9x13 pan for thicker bars or a rimmed baking sheet thinner ones (like the ones in Elementary school) and bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool and frost with Chocolate frosting (Some people frost with 1/2 cup peanut butter before bars cool and then frost with chocolate frosting after bars cool for an extra peanut kick).

Chocolate Frosting:

5 Tbsp butter, softened
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 pinch salt
3 Tbsp boiling water
1 and 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Cream butter, add in cocoa, salt, and boiling water. Stir until smooth. Add powdered sugar and beat until at desired consistency, adding more water or powdered sugar to make thinner or thicker.

Fresh Orange and Cranberry Muffins

2010-12-15T10:10:00.000-08:00

I had a bag of fresh cranberries and am still on an orange eating kick and decided to make some muffins.

I was nervous they would be too tart but they were surprisingly perfect.

Orange and Cranberry Muffins

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup fresh cranberries

1 egg

3/4-1 cup orange juice

1/4 cup veg. oil

1 tsp grated Orange rind

1. Mix together dry ingredients.

2. Juice 1 and 1/2 large oranges (this will come to between 3/4 and 1 cup of juice which was perfect. 3/4 cup --one orange--left the dough too thick so I ended up juicing 1/2 more orange). Set aside.

3. Chop fresh cranberries into chunks to equal 1 cup.

4. Stir cranberries into flour mixture.

5. In a small bowl whisk together egg, orange juice, oil, and grated orange rind (which I grated from the oranges I juiced).

6. Pour into flour mixture and stir until all dough is moistened.

7. Spoon into greased muffin tin (works better than using cup liners) about 3/4 full. Makes approx. 15 muffins. Sprinkle with some sugar on top and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

25 Christmas challenges

2010-12-03T06:20:00.001-08:00

Rockstar Diaries posted this wonderful list and I decided to take the challenge. Hope you do to:

25 christmas challenges...

go out of your way-- befriend someone today that needs a friend and follow through to christmas

tell someone you love them

make a tree decoration that will remind you of Christ

in your prayers today, give thanks for every blessing without asking for anything

try to be as kind as possible to others today

try not to quarrel with family members today

do a good deed anonymously

make goals for yourself-- seal a copy in an envelope to be opened in a year

visit someone sick or lonely or sad

do volunteer work for some worthy cause

do something fun for a child or younger sibling

try to forgive someone who has wronged you, be reconciled

make a "give list" instead of a list of gifts you'd like

improve yourself in some way to please the Savior

quietly reflect and choose uplifting activities vs shopping

phone or send a card to an old friend or family member

listen to Handel's Messiah

make a christmas treat for someone else

be a calming influence today and control your temper

accept the gift of forgiveness-- pray for some weakness and ask for help in repenting of it

look at christmas lights... where does all light come from?

sing carols

do something nice for someone without their knowing it was you

be the first to say hello to people all day

ask someone to tell you about a past christmas

Pecan Pie

2010-11-26T16:32:00.000-08:00

I made this for Thanksgiving yesterday and it was a smash hit. So delish and so rich. Also not that hard to make if you devote time to pay attention while making it.

2 sticks (1 cup) butter

2 cup sugar
2 cup light corn syrup
½ tsp salt

6 eggs, beaten
3 cups lightly chopped pecans
1 Tbsp. Vanilla

2 unbaked 8-inch pie shell

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter slowly on low heat (don't let it brown). Add sugar, corn syrup and salt. Turn the heat up to medium and stir until sugar dissolves, approx. 5 minutes. Bring to a boil and the turn down and let simmer (stirring occasionally because it foams up and is easy to boil over, even on a very low heat...so keep an eye on it!) for 10 - 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 15 minutes. Stir occasionally while cooling.
Roughly chop the pecans.

Mix 6 large eggs in a bowl and add vanilla. Mix with a fork. When butter/sugar mixture has cooled off a bit, slowly add egg mixture, mixing at the same time so it doesn't curdle. Mix in pecans. Pour into the pie shells and bake for 1 hour or until firm when shaken.

Harry Potter Party Food 2010-Sweet dishes

2010-11-19T14:18:00.000-08:00

So many sweet dishes to be had.

1. Snitch Cake-- For Harry's birthday, Mrs. Weasley made a floating snitch cake. While mine can't fly I thought it turned out pretty fun. All I did was use Wilton's Sports ball cake pan. I made a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting colored a pale yellow then dusted with gold shimmer. For the wings I used thin skewer sticks and glued on vellum cut into a wing shape.

2. Pumpkin Pasties--

Pie crust**
1 cup canned pureed pumpkin
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp ginger
dash of nutmeg

Combine the filling ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir well.
* For the pie crust you can use a large premade unbaked one and cut into small rounds, make your own dough, or as we have begun to do, go to a Mexican market and buy premade and cut uncooked baking empanada rounds. These are perfect and extremely easy to use.
Spoon equal amounts of filling into center of each round. Fold over and seal edge with egg-white wash and crimp edge with a fork. Cut 3 slits into top. Brush tops with remaining egg-white wash and bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 350 for 25-30 minutes until golden (or whatever pie dough calls for). Cool and serve.

3. Mad-eyes (Oreo truffles)-- Annicka made these tasty and rich little guys. They are super good and can be decorated any which way. We just did them as Mad-eyes in honor of his death in Harry Potter 7.

1 package Oreo cookies, finely crushed.
1 (8oz) package cream cheese
toppings of choice

Crush oreos in a ziploc bag with a rolling pin or in a food processor. Mix together cream cheese and Oreo crumbs and form into balls. Dip in melted chocolate or white chocolate as we did. Refrigerate at least 1 hour until firm. If you want to sprinkle with cookie crumbs, sprinkles, etc. do that before refrigeration.

4. Butterbeer-- This is Kellie's wonderful recipe. This one serves 2-4 people but it is easy to make a bunch and then just add cream soda to each serving. When we make a big batch wekeep it warm and just pour about 1/8-1/4 cup of the creamy mix into a cup and pour over with (unheated) cream soda.

1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup butterscotch topping
2 tablespoons whipped butter (room temp)
1 1/2 cup vanilla cream soda

Combine condensed milk, butterscotch topping and butter. Heat mixture until butter has melted and incorporated into mixture. Heat cream soda and add mixture, stir thoroughly

5. Polyjuice Potion Punch-- This is the easy Mormon sherbert punch. I just used a carton of Raspberry sherbet with 1 L. of regular 7 up and 1 of diet 7 up. if foams and fizzles.

6. Treacle Fudge-- This I made as more of a novelty item for a British flair to the party. Not my personal favorite.

1/2 cup evaporated milk
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 Tbsp. butter
1/3 cup treacle or molasses

In a large bowl mix milk, brown sugar, and salt. In a saucepan melt chocolate and butter together. Remove from heat and add molassess. Add the chocolate mixture to the milk mixture and pour into a pan to cool. Cut into squares and serve.

Drinking our butterbeers.

Harry Potter Party Food 2010-Savory dishes

2010-11-19T13:45:00.000-08:00

Previous Harry Potter foods can be found here.

Another Harry Potter movie has come and gone and here are some of the delightful foods we ate. This post will be main dishes.

Since it's getting cold outside I decided to make some soups/stews. I adapted these recipes out of the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook. These are adapted recipes to serve more people and make into a crock pot. I highly recommend checking out the original book for some interesting and fun recipes.

Kreacher's French Onion Soup

2 large onions

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 cup white sugar

8 cups beef broth

1 tsp salt

Slice onions into thin round rings. In a crockpot stir together beef broth, sugar, pepper, and salt. Add onion slices seperating them into individual rings. Cook on low for 6 hours or high for 3-4 hours. Onions should carmalize. Top with cheesy croutons.

Croutons: Thinly slice a baguette. Butter and sprinkle with parmesean cheese. Toast in the oven under the broiler for a couple of minutes keeping an eye on them so they don't burn. Float atop soup when served.

Mrs. Weasley's Beef Stew

2 lbs chuck steak cut into 1 inch pieces

1 onion chopped

1 (14oz) can Chicken broth

1 cup water

1 cup coca-cola

2 Tbsp Tomato paste

2 tsp ground sage

salt and pepper to taste

juice of 1 lemon

6 potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes

4 medium sized carrots, peeled and sliced

Brown the beef in 2 Tbsp veggie oil to seal in the juice (can also brown onions at this step which I forgot to do). Chop your vegetables. Mix together broth, water, and coca-cola in a large crock pot (I believe mine is a 10 quart). Add meat, tomato paste, onions, potatos, and carrots (if making this in a pot instead of crock-pot, it says to simmer meat and seasonings for an hour first before adding veggies). Pour over lemon juice and add sage. Cook on high for 4-6 hours until meat is cooked through and veggies are tender. Monitor for thickness/wetness and add flour or cornstarch as needed to thicken water, or more water if getting too dry. I sprinkled about 1/4 cup of flour over top when there was about an hour left and stirred. Serve with bread and season with salt and pepper to taste. The main way I changed this dish besides using a crock pot is that the original calls for 1/4 cup of chopped prunes. Wait, what? Prunes in stew? Must be a British or Irish thing.

Another Savory dish I made was Snapes Stuffed Mushrooms. I previously posted that recipe here.

Harry Potter Party-Games/crafts

2010-11-19T13:22:00.000-08:00

For our Harry Potter party we played a few games and made some crafts.

We made Snitch Christmas ornaments inspired by the ones I found here. Now is the time to do this as plastic gold Christmas balls are really cheap. Basically you just hot glue some sparkly pipe cleaner to the back of the ball and form wings.

This is an awesome Owlery garland made by the wonderful Annicka. They were a perfect little detail that I love so much during parties.

We made up a fishing game to win the sword of Gryffindor. The sword was just a foam one with hot-glued jewels all over it. The fish are just cute laminated fish (thanks Annicka) with paperclips on them and we had a magnet tied to a pole. On the back of the fish were the numbers 1, 2, and 3 which corresponded to the different types of prizes you could chose from.

"Don't Eat Pete" is a game where you put a piece of candy on each square. One player leaves the room while the others decide which square is "pete". The object of the game is to get as much candy as possible without getting pete. If the player grabs pete everyone yells, "Don't eat Pete!" In this case pete is Peter Pettigrew. We have played this game many times in a wide variety including The Office, Star Wars, Dumbledore's Army, etc.

Stuffed Mushrooms

2010-11-16T14:23:00.000-08:00

1 lb. large mushrooms
4 Tbsp butter
4 green onions, chopped
1/2 cup finely minced ham
1 small clove garlic, finely minced (1 Tbsp preminced garlic)
2 cups coarsely chopped baby spinach
1 cup fresh bread crumbs ( I buy the ones that are dry at the store premade for stuffing)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 to 1/2 cup Mozzarella cheese

Wash and trim the end of stems from mushrooms, scoop out stem and middle of mushroom. Chop stems and set aside. Spray a shallow 8x8 baking dish or as I perfer grease a mini cupcake pan (the mushrooms fit nicely in the little cubbies with cooking spray. Brush each mushroom with melted butter (2 Tbsp) and place in pan.
Heat remaining 2 Tbsp of butter in a skillet. Chop green onions; combine with reserved chopped mushroom stems, ham and garlic. Add to skillet along with the spinach and sauté until tender. Add bread crumbs, salt, and pepper to vegetable mixture; stir well (To moisten the bread crumbs since I buy the ones ready for stuffing I use just a Tbsp of cream or milk). Fill each mushroom cap with a little of the stuffing, mounding up. Sprinkle with Mozzarella cheese. Bake at 350° for about 20 minutes, until cheese is melted and mushroom caps are tender.

These are super good and can be prepared ahead and then refridgerated prior to baking.

2010-11-06T16:42:00.000-07:00

Some cute Thanksgiving ideas...

The Turkey Cupcakes are from Family Fun.

The nutty candles were featured on Write Click Scrapbook today.

I love thie turkey picture holder and found it featured on eighteen25 last month.

Gratitude project by Becky Higgins is linked here.

scrappy days

2010-11-01T15:47:00.000-07:00

Some of my latest scrapbook creations...

Cinnamon Apple Bread Pudding

2010-10-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

This is another perfect fall dish from "Our Best Bites". Click the link for exact details and wonderful pictures. This is my basic interpretation.

Caramel Apple Bread Pudding
1 loaf of stale French Bread, cut into 1 inch cubes (the original recipe used 5-6 cups and stated it was about 1/2 of a loaf, but my whole loaf was about 7 cups so I went for the whole thing)
3 c. apples, peeled and chopped into small pieces ( 4 medium apples)
4 eggs
3 egg yolks
1 1/2 c. milk
1 1/2 c. heavy cream (too be healthier you could replace this with milk, but it's quite delish with the wicked heavy cream)
3/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. almond extract
2 tsp. pumpkin pie seasoning
1 Tbsp. butter

*If possible, cut the bread into cubes and leave it out for several hours or overnight. If not, place the bread cubes on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until the bread cubes are dried out but not toasted.

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease or spray a 9x13" baking dish with shortening or non-stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, toss together the bread cubes and the apple pieces. Transfer to the baking dish. In the same large bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients except for the butter. When combined, continue to whisk while pouring over the bread/apple mixture (just to make sure the spices are evenly distributed). Gently combine the bread and egg mixture, making sure each piece of bread is soaking in part of the egg and milk mixture. Allow to stand for at least 15 minutes (I covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated over night so this could be an breakfast dish). When the egg/milk mixture has mostly soaked into the bread, put the butter over the bread (My butter was frozen so I grated it with a cheese grater from the stick until I had used approx. 1 Tbsp. It distributed more evenly this way. Other wise you would just cut it into small pieces and sprinkle it on top.) and place the baking dish in the preheated oven and bake for 45 minutes or until the center is set but not dry or burned.

Remove from oven and allow to stand for 5 minutes. Cut into pieces and serve with warm Buttermilk Syrup.

I could have sworn I posted Buttermilk Syrup before but since I can't find it here it is! This syrup is especially delish over German pancakes with strawberries. Really over anything!

Buttermilk Syrup

3/4 cup buttermilk (1 of those small cartons that are like 40 cents at the store is perfect)
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 stick butter (no substitutions here, I just used what was left over I grated butter for the bread pudding)
2 Tbsp karo syrup
1 tsp baking soda

Choose a pot that is twice the size as you think you will need. I used a 2 quart pot and had to be extremely careful while making not to let it spill over as this recipe foams and triples in volume while cooking.

Mix ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce to medium heat and stir for 8 minutes. Do not look away, just diligently stir as this can boil over easily or harden if neglected. Enjoy pouring it over anything and everything or even eat it with a spoon.

Sin-sational treat

2010-10-26T15:23:00.000-07:00

These tasty fall treat is wickedly good. They come from the blog "Our Best Bites" and I keep finding more and more things there I want to make! Definitely check it out and for very detailed pictures with fantastic step-by-step instructions check out the recipe's link. I am just posting basics here for my own records.

Cinnamon Caramel Corn

12 cups popped plain popcorn (This is 1 1/2 bags of microwave popcorn or 1/2 cup of traditional popcorn kernals).
1 cup roughly chopped pecans
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup Karo syrup
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
white chocolate chips

Pop popcorn and mix with pecans in LARGE bowl. In a 2 quart microwave save dish stir together brown sugar and cinnamon. Chop butter and place on top of brown sugar. Pour over Karo Syrup. Microwave on high for 30 seconds and stir together. Microwave for 2 minutes and stir again. Then microwave for 2 more minutes until bubbly. Add in baking soda and vanilla (this will make mixture froth. If you want to see this, then check out the actual link). Pour mixture over popcorn and pecans, stirring constantly until all pieces are incorporated. Spread over a foil lined baking sheet (one with sides). Bake at 250 degrees for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Remove a piece from oven and allow to cool. Is it crunchy enough? If yes then pull out of oven and transfer to a large piece of waxed paper. If not bake another 5 minutes. Melt white chocolate (or almond bark) in the microwave or with a double boiler. I used 3 pieces of almond bark. Drizzle over popcorn on waxed paper and allow to cool. Break into pieces and serve.

Pumpkin Seeds

2010-10-14T23:43:00.000-07:00

Tonight we carved pumpkins and I decided to save the seeds and roast them. Super easy and delicious.

Collect the seeds (super slimy, I feel bad for the people who get them out for a living). Wash them well and lay them out to dry. I only dried mine for about 15 minutes. I lined a baking sheet with parchment paper, sprayed it with cooking spray and laid out the seeds. I sprayed those with cooking spray and then seasoned and salted them. I just used some Season-All. Stirred them around and put them in the oven at 400 degrees for 45 minutes stirring every 15 minutes. You know they are done when they are sizzling.
Cool completely.

Coconut Thai Beef Stew

2010-10-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

This is an adaption to a recipe that was in the Deseret News yesterday Oct. 13, 2010.

1 cup of onion chopped
5 minced cloves of garlic (or 5 Tbsp pre-minced garlic)
1 Tbsp ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp tumeric
salt and pepper

2 lbs beef steak cut into chunks
1 can (13-14 oz) lite coconut milk
1 tsp lime peel zest
2 Tbsp lime juice
1/4 cup brown sugar
bay leaves
1-2 cups baby carrots
2 cups chopped potato (I didn't do this but thought after the fact it would be a good addition)

rice or rice noodles
chopped peanuts (optional to top)
lime wedges
coconut (optional to top)

Heat some veg. oil in a skillet and sautee onions for 5 minutes. Add in garlic and seasonings (ginger, coriander, cumin, tumeric, salt and pepper). Cook about a minute, until fragerant and transfer to a bowel. Sautee beef until cooked through adding more oil as needed. Add in onion/spice/garlic mix and beef into a stock pot. Pour in coconut milk, lime juice, lime zest, brown sugar, a few bay leaves, and carrots/potatoes. Bring the mixture to a simmer and simmer on low heat until slightly thickened and carrots and beef is tender (approx 30 minutes). Serve over rice and garnish with peanuts, lime, and coconut.

Awesome Halloween Printable

2010-10-09T02:10:00.000-07:00

"Eat, Drink, and Be Scary" is my new favorite Halloween catchphrase. For a cute FREE printable of this check out Craftily Ever After.

And Craftily Ever After did a "Keep Calm and Scary on" one as well.

Fall Wreaths

2010-10-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

Fall Wreaths are all the rage this year and I created 2 for a relativly cost.

1. Fall leaves with a crow. I love crows for fall and for this wreath I just wrapped two 3 feet leaf vines around a medium woven stick wreath. I got the wreath base on sale at Robert's craft and the leaf vines the Dollar Store. I secured the leaves with hot glue and wired in the crow (also from the dollar store).

2. Burlap Skeleton Wreath. I bought the burlap from Robert's craft for a couple dollars and cut four 2 inch wide strips. I wrapped and hot-glued those strips around a styrofoam wreath base. After the wreath is covered I cut 1 inch x 2 inch strips and tied them into knots and hot-glued those around. The skeleton was from a set of 4 from the dollar store and I just hot-glued that on too.

Berry Peach Crumble

2010-09-16T13:05:00.001-07:00

I had peaches and some blueberries I coun't eat fast enough so I threw together this yummy dessert.

2 cups berries (I used 1 cup blueberries and 1 cup frozen raspberries)
1 cup fresh peaches, peeled and sliced (I used 2 large White peaches)
2 Tbsp. flour
2 Tbsp. Lemon juice

2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
2/3 cup oats
1/3 cup melted butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

Cook together berries, peaches, lemon juice and 2 Tbsp flour stirring constantly over medium heat in a sauce pan, until mixture boils and thickens.
* because I used raspberries this mixture was super tart so after I took it off the burner I stirred in 2 Tbsp powdered sugar.

*I read somewhere that is substituting frozen fruit for fresh to use 12 oz frozen berries per 2 cups of fresh and 8-10 oz frozen peaches to 1 cup of fresh.

Spread berries into an 8x8 pan. In a seperate bowl stir together brown sugar, flour, oats. Season with cinnamon and salt. With a fork toss mixture with melted butter to make a crumbly mixture.

Sprinkle topping over fruit. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

A tasty fall treat!

Indoor S'mores and some favorite new links.

2010-09-10T14:52:00.001-07:00

It's bonfire season and I love some good old fashioned s'mores, but I love these even more because they come without the lingering smell of smoke when you get home.

1 12oz box Golden Graham cereal (8-9 cups)
1 12 oz bag chocolate chips (1 1/2 cups)
6 cups miniature marshmallows
5 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup karo syrup
1 tsp vanilla

Melt together 5 cups of marshmallows, the chocolate chips, butter, and karo syrup. Melt over low heat stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Pour over golden grahams cereal in large bowl. Stir until evenly coated, add in remaining 1 cup marshmallows.

Press into a greased 9x13 pan. Use a greased sheet of wax paper to press down evenly. As hard as it is, allow to cool for at least an hour before cutting for best results. Cuts into 24 bars.

Now onto some new favorite sites:

The Fat-free Vegan: Sinlessly Delicious. While I am neither vegan nor fat free there is actually some pretty tasty things and ideas on this blog.

The Creative Operation. This craft/scrapbook blog is by 2 OR nurses and boy do they have some beautiful stuff.

Scissors.Paper.Cake. This site is a visual gathering a party ideas. Total eye candy.

fun for fall and all for fun

2010-09-07T11:56:00.001-07:00

Here are some fun fall craft/party ideas I have stumbled across and would love to use.

Martha's Pumpkin Balloon game.

Halloween Roundup at One Pretty thing has lots of different links for craft ideas.

Acorn Dough Nuts. These were in family fun and were so stinking cute I could hardly stand it!

Another Family Fun snack is to make a "salsa" of apples and use cinnamon tortilla chips to dip. Add some variety on the chips by cookie-cutting them into fall/halloween shapes before baking. Apple dip recipe is found here.

Hopefully these are a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing as we approach fall. I know I have some ideas and need to get some doughnuts stat.

Spice Pear Cake

2010-08-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

Here is a little something I made up...

2-3 pears, peeled and chopped
3/4 cup white sugar
1 cup white flour
1/2 cup wheat flour
1/3 cup applesauce
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Stir together sugar and pears and set aside. Beat egg whites with applesauce, then stir in pear mixture. Add salt, baking soda, and spices. Sift in flour.

Mix all together and pour into greased pan (I used a 8 inch bundt pan, but this would make good muffins or 1 loaf in a bread pan). Bake at 325 degrees for 30-45 minutes (depends on pan type, just bake until brown and springing to touch).

At 8 servings this recipe is 3 Weight-watchers points/serving.

Project: Scrap

2010-08-05T16:03:00.001-07:00

It's Project Runway season again some of you may remember that I once did Project:Project a little scrap challenge each week inspired by that weeks episode of project runway. Well in the name of good creative fun I decided to do my own this season.

So for Project: Scrap Week 1-- take someone elses sketch that is SO not your style and Make It Work!

On project runway they had to take a piece of clothing of their own and pass it down to the next person to incorporate into a design. So I looked at Pencil Lines Sketches and found one that I really didn't like because it's SO not my style and designed a page incorporating that style...making it work for me.

Here is the sketch:
And here is my creation:

I don't generally like using 1 photo much less 1 that small and in a corner. I have had this photo for awhile (it's from 2007) and I love it and I also love the new Delovely line from Cosmo Cricket so this is what I came up with.

oven roasted and baked

2010-08-05T15:54:00.000-07:00

Something I have been eating a lot of lately is Oven Roasted corn. I hated corn on the cob until about a year ago and now I have eaten it almost every day...

Stick ears of corn in the oven (husks and silk still on) and roast for 30 minutes at 375. Peel off husk, and silk comes off super easy. Season and eat eat eat!

Another quick thing I have made a lot of is talapia fish. I take some fish fillets and lay them in a greased baking dish. Seasoned with dill, paprika, and garlic salt. Cut little bits of butter over top and then squeezed in some lemon juice over it all. Baked at 350 for 20 minutes... it's pretty good and super easy.

Cashew Chicken

2010-07-27T15:27:00.000-07:00

This is a quick version of cashew chicken that begs to be added to as desired. Good basic stuff.

2 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless-cut into small pieces
1 garlic clove or 1 Tbsp minced garlic
2 Tbsp veg oil
1 cup chopped fresh mushrooms
1 cup chopped zucchini
1/2 cup cashews
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1/3 cup water
1 Tbsp sugar

Stir together soy sauce, water, and sugar in small bowl and set aside.

Sautee garlic in oil and add chopped chicken. Sautee until chicken no longer pink. Add in mushrooms and zucchini and continue to stir. As veggies soften add in soy sauce mixture. Bring to a boil and cover letting cook for 2 minutes. Add Cashews and cook for a minute longer. Serve over rice.

Blueberry and Zucchini Muffins

2010-07-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

I am trying to incorporate more fruits and veggies into my diet but I have a hard time using them before they go bad. in experiementing ways to use zucchini I found a recipe for Blueberry and Zucchini bread. Blueberries are really good right now so I thought that sounded fun. I changed it up into muffins and added some oats. They turned out really well!

2 eggs
2/3 cup veg. oil
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup sugar
1 and 1/3 cup shredded zucchini (1 large or 2 small)
1 and 1/2 cup flour (I used white all-purpose flour)
1 cup oats
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1-2 cups blueberries

Beat together eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar. Fold in shredded zucchini. Beat in salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Stir in flour and oats. Fold in blueberries. Bake in a lined muffin tin at 350 degrees for approx. 20 minutes. Makes 24 muffins.

If made as bread loaves bake for approx. 50 minutes and allow to cool for 15-20 minutes prior to removing from greased bread pan.

Chocolate Peanut-Butter Brownies

2010-07-05T04:32:00.000-07:00

Easy variation for brownies...

Make your favorite basic brownie (if you want them extra gooey add in 1/2 cup chocolate syrup). I just use my "go-to" Betty Crocker brand Fudge Brownie mix.

Peanut-Butter Frosting:

1/2 stick softened butter or margarine
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 TBSP milk

beat all ingredients together and frost on COOLED brownies.

Melt 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and pour over frosted layer. Allow to cool at least 30 minutes. (I talked about an easy way to melt chocolate chips here.)

Strawberry Freezer Jam

2010-06-29T15:09:00.000-07:00

I LOVE strawberry freezer jam, but have never tried to make it. It's so easy and delicious I wish I would have made this a long time ago.

With strawberries on sale right now it was a good deal, especially because I found Pectin on sale as well. For about 5 pints it cost around $6.00 to make (minus cost of containers).

2 cups crushed strawberries (I have heard other crushed fruit is good as well but have never tried it) The strawberries should be fresh.

3-4 cups sugar
3/4 cup water
1 (1.75oz) package pectin

Crush strawberries and stir together with sugar. I said 3-4 cups because it depends on how ripe and sweet your strawberries are...mine were not that sweet (I was too impatient to wait a couple of days) so I used the 4 cups.

Let stand for 10 minutes.

Stir together Pectin and water and bring to a boil. Boil for 1 minute than stir into strawberry mixture. Allow to stand for 3-5 minutes than pour into jars/containers. Cover with lids and stand at room temp for 24 hours. Freeze or refridgerate as desired. Lasts at least a year in freezer and around a month in the fridge (if it lasts that long before everyone has eaten it!!).

Empanadas, baby, yeah!

2010-06-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

So my friend Sarah married a man from Argentina named Alfredo. Last Friday Sarah and Alfredo invited Christin and I over to make some Empanada's for Alfredo's birthday and the World Soccer Cup. In all reality these are not hard at all, just time consuming. But time consuming is fun when you are visiting with good friends (and listening to Glee).

Empanadas
1 lb chicken meat
1 white onion
1 green bell pepper
1 potato
1-2 hard boiled eggs
cumin
paprika
salt
chili powder
1 lemon
2 packages of empanada dough (Fry or bake)--this is found at your local Hispanic market place. You could also home make this but that is additionally time consuming. Google for a recipe if interested.

Okay so boil up your chicken. Chicken breast off the bone is easiest but you can use any type of chicken (we used drumsticks) you just need 1 lb of meat for 2 packages (24 empanadas). Chop chicken into small pieces, reserving some chicken stock. In the mean time also boil your peeled potato whole, and make the hard boiled eggs.

Dice up the onion and green pepper. Add to pot with a little chicken stock (probably about 1/4 cup), and chopped chicken. Cook on stove top for a bit seasoning with cumin, salt, paprika, and chili powder to taste. To make spicier you could also throw in some red pepper flakes.

Place pot into a cold water bath in the sink to cool meat quickly. Chop potato into small pieces, and also hard boiled egg. When chicken has cooled add potato.

Spoon a large spoonful of meat and potato mixture and a small bit of egg into each dough round. Fold over in half and starting at one corner turn in edge every 1/2 inch overlapping previous fold (this is the trickiest part) you could also crimp edges with a fork or form like pie crust to seal the edge. Bake the baking shells for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees, or fry the fry shells (these ones are much tastier, but the baked are good too).

As you eat them try squeezing some lemon juice inside. They are SO good with the lemon juice.

Other delicious fillings to try: Dulce De Leche/cheese/strawberries, Nutella, apple pie filling with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top... How would you fill them?

A "Gleeful" Summer Salad

2010-06-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

This was a salad that I made for the Season finale of GLEE. The happy summer colors and flavors made us all happy and it tasted delightful too.

4 cups Spinach greens
1 cup sliced strawberries
1/2 cup blueberries
1/2 sliced and diced English Cucumber
1/4 cup bacon bits
1/8 cup Poppyseed dressing

Toss together and top with some sort of nut. I chose glazed pecans, deliciousness ensued.

(Measurements are gestimates...it really doesn't matter how much of each thing...just do it to taste.

Samoan Bars

2010-06-13T10:25:00.000-07:00

These are a homemade version of the Girl Scout cookie...pretty darn tasty!

Cookie:
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 pan. Cream together Butter and Sugar until fluffy. Mix in egg. salt, and vanilla. Stir in flour making a crumbly mixture. Press into pan and bake until light brown 20-25 minutes. Cool on wire rack in pan until completely cool.

Coconut-Caramel Center:
3 cups shredded coconut
14 oz of Caramels (I use 1 bag of Caramel bites because they melt faster)
1/4 tsp salt
3 and 1/2 TBSP milk
1 bag chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Spread coconut onto a baking sheet and toast in oven until lightly browned for about 10-15 minutes stirring every 2-5 minutes. Cool.

In a pot melt caramel with salt and milk. When smooth remove from heat and stir in coconut. Spread over cooled cookie base (This is more difficult than it looks. I spooned coconut onto base and then pressed with a greased piece of wax paper to pread evenly. Caramel is still hot so wear oven mitt when pressing with paper).

Allow to cool completely. Melt Chocolate chips (I melt Chocolate chips by putting them into a tupperware container and microwaving for 30 seconds at a time, stirring with a knife in between, until melted. Ususally takes 1 to 1.5 minutes).

Cut into bars and remove from pan. Dip the bottom of each bar into chocolate (Easiest just to turn bar over and spread on chocolate with a knife or spoon). Place on wax paper. Take remaining chocolate and drizzle over the top of bars. I cooled my bars on wax paper and a baking sheet in the freezer for 10 minutes, until the chocolate had hardened.

SO good! While they are time consuming because everything needs melted/baked, and then cooled...they are worth it!

When life gives you Lemons....

2010-05-15T18:11:00.000-07:00

...bake Lemon Cupcakes!

I made these Lemon cupcakes and I rather liked them because they don't have an overbearing Lemon flavor.

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1-2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp grated lemon peel (I always grate fresh)
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups sour cream

Cream butter and sugar, beat in eggs one at a time. Add vanilla, lemon peel, and lemon juice and cream together. Mix in baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Sift in flour 1 cup at a time alternating with sour cream. Mixture will be of a thicker consistency. Spoon into a muffin tin and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. When filled with about 1/4 cup per cupcake this recipe yields approx 30 cupcakes.

Lemon frosting:
2 Tbsp butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp milk
1 tsp grated lemon peel
3-5 cups powdered sugar (depending on how much frosting you intend to make)
Mix together butter, vanilla, milk, and lemon peel. Add 3 cups powdered sugar and blend. Add lemon juice and stir. If thicker consistency desired add more powdered sugar as needed. To thin add another Tbsp of milk.

Frost cupcakes when warm for a lemon glaze. Frost when completely cool for a frosting layer. (Tastes great either way!)

The Beehive Bizarre

2010-05-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

Today I went with some friends to the Beehive Bizarre which is just a little boutique where people sell their online (usually etsy) shop stuff. It was fun to wander around and check out the latest and greatest in arts and craft (non-scrapbooking). Lots of flowers and headbands and felt were for sale and I got lots of good ideas. Some of the stuff I got as pictured above:

1. Fell instantly in love with this Vinylicious Designs book cover. Harry Potter all the way.
2. The bound book is a journal made from an old school hardback cover book. I have made ones from paperback and thought this one was really fun.
3. a pack of Vintage flashcards.
4. A cute felt and t-shirt fabric flower hair clip from Wendy and Peter.
5. Some little silk flower bobbypins...I espcially liked how they were on playing cards.
7. Some super cute magnets. The Owl and Unicorn are from Isabell's Umbrella, who had so many cute little creatures like gnomes and t-rex's as well. The little Viking I got for my sister and it's from Noddin Shop which has tons of cute and fun zombie, viking, skulls, etc...

I love supporting the little people who take so much time to be creative.

Strawberry Banana Muffins

2010-04-22T22:08:00.000-07:00

to continue on the theme of strawberries... I mixed up these strawberry banana muffins off of various recipes and suggestions I found at allrecips.com. I had bananas and strawberries that were going bad and wasn't in the mood for a smoothie, so I thought this seems appropriate.

2 eggs, beaten
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup strawberries chopped into small pieces
1 cup mashed bananas (2 bananas)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup oil (people suggest subsitituing with applesauce, but I didn't have any)
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

Mix together all dry ingredients in seperate bowl. Mix together eggs, sugar, strawberries, bananas, vanilla, and oil. Stir in dry ingredients. Bake in Muffin cups at 350 degrees for approx. 25 minutes. Makes 12-16 large muffins.

Strawberry Trifle

2010-04-20T22:54:00.000-07:00

the season for strawberries....

Angel food cake cubed
Sliced Strawberries
Vanilla Cream

Layer ingredients in Trifle bowl, cover with coolwhip, and let sit for 30 minutes before serving.

Vanilla Cream:
1 box vanilla pudding
1/2 cup milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup coolwhip

Blend all ingredients together and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Oh Julia.

2010-04-09T16:08:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid I didn't get up Saturday morning for the Cartoons. I got up for the Frugal Gourmet and Julia Child. I though she was a goofy druken old lady who whipped up impossible things in the kitchen and it fascinated me. At the American History Smithsonian they had an exhibit that contained Julia Childs actual kitchen.

For one of Julia's recipes click her name above to access the Julia Child Recipe Tumblr.

Seventh Hill Pizza

2010-04-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

yum.

I really enjoyed 7th Hill Pizza a lot. This is where we went to eat our first night in Washington DC. It's off Capital Hill in the Eastern Market area. I just love firestone pizzas, I had a personal pizza called Navy Yard. It was topped with tomato, toulouse sausage, oregano, and pecorino cheese with mozerella. Super good. I loved what Mike had too. It had prosciutto and some sort of leafy greens I haven't been able to identify. Then for dessert we had what I had been waiting for...the Nutella Calzone. oh.my.deliciousness. Creamy nutella and some raspberry in a calzone. It was really really good.

Now this is no exact recipe but this one looks super delightful so I am going to include it, make it this weekend and report back how it was.

Ricotta and Nutella Calzones

Easter Pavlova

2010-04-04T18:39:00.000-07:00

This was my first time kaing this...delicious!!! It's gooey in the center and the crust melts in your mouth, so very good.

It's simple, IF you follow the instructions.

4 egg whites at room temperature
1 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp corn starch

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Crumple up a piece of parchment, uncrumple and spread on baking sheet. sprinkle with some corn starch. If you don't do this it will stick and break apart when removed. I have heard you can use aluminum foil instead of parchment paper.

Beat egg whites until a stiff peak forms and still shiny. Add sugar 1 Tbsp at a time, beating throughly in between. Fold in vanilla, lemon juice, and cornstarch (don't pre mix). Scoop onto baking sheet and spread in a 9 inch circle, with edges higher than the middle. (I spread mine into 12 and it was more crust than goo and cooled faster, I enjoyed the cooling faster and like the crust so I didn't mind, but it is supposed to be taller and have more goo in the middle, when done).

Bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour then turn off oven, open door a bit and cool in oven for 1 hour. It will crack a little on the outside, and be a pale pinkish brown color.

Before serving top with coolwhip and strawberries and kiwi (the traditional toppings, although any fruit will do).

Enjoy!

Cadbury Cookies

2010-03-09T19:52:00.000-08:00

Tis the time of year when Cadbury shows up in America. I love their chocolate and Cadbury mini eggs are no exception. Camille found this recipe and we decided to check it out... Cadbury Mini egg Cookies.

The only change we made is that since we had eaten 1/2 the bag at the movies (Alice in Wonderland) last night we added a handful of white chocolate chips and a handful of butterscotch chips for fun.

enjoy!

Ace of Cakes 2

2010-03-05T16:38:00.000-08:00

I made Bakerella's Red Velvet cake as I mentioned in part 1. Here is a picture and my opinion. This honestly wasn't my favorite cake. It was super dense and I got sick of eating it after a couple pieces. sad sad day in cake world. The frosting was phenomenol though.

On Tongue and Cheeky Brooke posted Pollyanna cupcakes. How delightful is that, I will definitely have to try this one out...when I am in the mood for cake again. It was my birthday this week and honestly I need a break. :)

Ace of Cakes

2010-02-26T15:36:00.000-08:00

I have recently become enamoured by the idea of homemade from scratch cakes. I really like Betty Crocker cake mixes so I never really cared to make cakes from scratch, but one sunday I was thinking about the movie Pollyanna. To me Pollyanna and Anne of Green Gables are 2 of the ultimate Sunday afternoon movies. I don't know why but they are. In Pollyanna I always loved the cake the kitchen ladies were making for the fundraiser fair. It always looked so nice and pretty.

I decided to flip through my Betty Crocker cookbook until I found a cake like it and try it out. Sucess! it was just the right amount of sweet and moist. Here is my adaption:

2/3 cup butter crisco
1 & 3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 & 1/2 tsp vanilla (the real stuff is oh so much better)
2 & 1/4 cup flour
2 & 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 & 1/4 cup milk

Heat oven to 350 degrees. grease and flour to 9in circular cake pans. Beat butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Beat for 5 minutes on a high speed (I know it seems like forever but it makes a world of difference). On a low speed alternate adding milk and dry ingredients mixture. Pour into pans and bake for 35 minutes (until toothpick comes out clean).

Frost with French Silk Frosting:

2 & 2/3 cup powdered sugar
2/3 cup softened butter
2 oz melted chocolate (I only had hershey's kisses to melt and I just made up a measurement and melted 8 kisses in a small tupperware for 30 seconds, stirred, and then an additional 30 seconds in the microwave).
3/4 cup vanilla
2 Tbsp milk

Blend all ingredients together until fluffy.

I was to busy enjoying the cake to actually show a cut piece in a picture.

So since then I have been craving more homemade from scratch cake and decided to take a cue from Bakerella and make some Red Velvet Cake. It's baking right now so I will followup with pictures and the Cream cheese frosting I made instead of Bakerella's frosting (which I am sure is delicous but I didn't have enough powdered sugar on hand for it).

Happy me from A to Z

2010-02-21T18:53:00.000-08:00

This past week on Write.Click.Scrapbook there was a mystery challenge, and I decided to play along. After gathering all of my supplies and making my list I ended up with a "Happy me from A to Z" mini book. I love this because it will be fun to look at when I need a pick me up, and it is a quick glance at my personality.

Here is my list:

A- Aggies
B- Boys
C- Chapstick
D- Disneyland
E- Entertainment
F- family and friend time
G- Gospel of Jesus Christ
H- Holidays
I- Ice Cream
J- Jeans
K- Kitchen gadgets
L- Light
M- Magic
N- Never-never land
O- Organizing
P- People in general
Q- Quiet time in the morning
R- rock music
S- Scrapbooking
T- T-Rex
U- Utah
V- Vacations
W- Winter wonderland
X- eXtraordinary things
Y- Yummy food
Z- Zoo animals

When my computer isn't virus ridden I will update with pics of the actual project.

Valentine's Day 14

2010-02-13T14:38:00.000-08:00

Spread the love with those you love and find a way to serve someone else today. Visit a nursing home, make some blankets, shovel snow, donate items to a local charity. there are a million different ways to help someone else today.

Valentine's Day 13

2010-02-12T14:36:00.000-08:00

It's the weekend...go on a date.

Need some different date ideas? check out this article at Make and Takes.

Valentine's Day 12

2010-02-11T14:34:00.000-08:00

Heart attack!!

Remember doing that in jr high and high school. well do it of your kids, significant other, neighbor, friend, etc. It's a fun and super easy way to make someone smile. Just a bunch of paper hearts and maybe some candy or a gift taped all over someone's room or door.

Valentine's Day 11

2010-02-10T21:29:00.001-08:00

Remember the old school valentines boxes you made in elementary? They were always creative and fun. Well as a family make some for the month of February to leave love notes, treats, etc in for each other. A fun creative art activity and a way to spread some good feelings around. I remember one year I even made mine out of legos. the sky's the limit!

Valentine's Day 10

2010-02-09T21:27:00.000-08:00

Giant kisses

Make rice krispie treats and form in plastic wrap into the size of a giant kiss. Tap on cute paper tag with message. Wrap in aluminum foil. A cute, easy, and tasty surprise.

Valentine's Day 9

2010-02-08T15:46:00.000-08:00

It's monday night which means it's family day in the Mormon culture. Emilie the brilliant creator of emilie handmade has another wonderful and resourceful site of FHE (family home evening) ideas. Her lesson for this week is about love in the home and she includes a delightful recipe for conversation heart fudge.

Check it out here.

Valentine's Day 8

2010-02-07T15:35:00.000-08:00

Since it's Sunday I would just like to encourage people to read in the scriptures about Love. There are plenty of good ones to go around but my favorites are in 1 John. I love all of 1 John but chapters 3-4 are especially about love.

Week 5

2010-02-07T01:16:00.000-08:00

29. my true colors, Yellow and Blue.
30. Go Aggies! I love the blue A, it is something that always puts a smile on my face.
31. After barely making it through a snowy, foggy sardine canyon alive, I got to Brigham city and it was so foggy you couldn't even see the freeway entrance. I ended up forced to check into Day's inn at 1 in the morning. not my favorite way to spend $73, but better than having an accident.
32. First fortune of the year. I love fortune cookies and actually do like to think they can make a difference. plus it's almost Chinese New Year...year of the Tiger.
33. TV and cookies. a winning combination.
34. Before Allan heads to Slovenia for the next 5 months we decided to head to Logan for the USU vs. Idaho Basketball game.
35. Got a new hair cut, and it was also my first day orienting to be a charge nurse.

Valentine's Day 7

2010-02-06T15:33:00.000-08:00

Do a secret act of service for a friend or even a stranger....do an extra chore, give someone else the right of way, etc. just have fun with it!

Valentine's Day 6

2010-02-05T15:47:00.000-08:00

Make a fun craft from Family Fun.

They have a lot of easy, creative, and relativly cheap ideas.

Another fun idea is homemade heart crayons as found at Emilie Homemade.

Valentine's Day 5

2010-02-04T20:08:00.000-08:00

To go with all of those movies, you should make some tasty and fun popcorn...
2 poppers of popped popcorn (1/2 cup unpopped) OR 3 bags plain unbuttered microwave popcorn
1 1/2 sticks margarine or butter
1 1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup karo syrup
2 cups mini marshmallows
1 big bag peanut M&Ms (valentines edition)

Boil butter, sugar, and corn syrup for 4 minutes. In a large bowl mix popped popcorn and marshmallows together. Pour sugar mixture over popcorn. Stir thoroughly and add M&Ms. You can add food coloring to the sugar mixture for added flair.

Valentine's Day 4

2010-02-03T11:21:00.000-08:00

Brownie Hearts

Another easy treat from Martha. Make your brownies and then using a heart cookie cutter, cut them into small hearts. You can use these to top cupcakes like the chocolate filigree hearts, or throw a couple in a bowl of ice cream, or it's just a fun lunch box surprise.

Valentine's Day 3

2010-02-02T11:26:00.000-08:00

Some fun ideas for Valentine's movies for families:

Aladdin
the Little Mermaid
Princess Diaries
The Parent trap
Lady and the Tramp
Hairspray

Some fun ideas for Valentine's movies for couples:

Pillow Talk
Sleepless in Seattle
Win a Date with Tad Hamilton
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Much Ado about Nothing
10 things I hate about you
Top 10 Valentine's Movies for the Lovestruck

Or if you are feeling S.A.D. (single awareness day) instead...

Top 10 Valentine's Movies for the Lovelorn

Valentine's Day 2

2010-02-01T11:17:00.000-08:00

A fun way to make a "heartfelt" breakfast...

Make toad-in-a-hole (toast with a hole in the middle for an egg to cook) but instead of making the hole round, make it heartshaped with a heart cookie cutter.

Butter a skillet, cut heart into bread, lay bread on skillet and crack egg into heart-shaped hole. Cook until egg cooked and bread toasted.

Valentine's Day 1

2010-01-31T11:06:00.000-08:00

For the 14 days til Valentine's Day I am going to do 14 posts of fun ideas...

This first idea is from Martha Stewart's Feb. Living. My roommates and I thought they were too cute not to try and make ourselves.

Chocolate Filigree hearts for cupcake toppers. It really is super easy, just melt some chocolate, put it into a decorators bag or a ziplock bag with a tiny hole cut in the corner. Trace a heart cookie cutter on some parchment and then outline the heart with chocolate filling it with swirls and designs. Freeze for 15 minutes to set then top cupcakes.

Here are pictures of mine:

Week 4

2010-01-29T23:19:00.001-08:00

22. finally have caught up on writing and reading my blogs.
23. big shopping day and cooking day for Mission: Dinner. I made banana chocolate chip cookies, prepared a breakfast casserole to cook tomorrow, and made some super fantastic chicken tortilla soup.

24. The scriptures on the left are my newer ones I've only had a year or so. I had to replace the ones on the right because not only have I been missing D&C 89, but they fell out of the binding. The old set I got when I started seminary at 14. They survived seminary, institute, and 3 summers of EFY. I love them...they are full of quotes, markings, stories, and memories. But it's time to make my new ones as great as the old.

25. Bed is my favorite. I have had a really hard time sleeping since I got home from the cruise...I am only on 12 hours in 3 days. yuck, sometimes my body yells at me to make a horizontal position immediately. If only I could at work. (and yes that is a high school musical pillow case, lol)

26. Level 20 of tetris, it was an amazing feat and wonderful way to waste time at 4 in the morning.

27. All I have done for days is work, the only picture I could manage to take that wouldn't break privacy laws. I hung a lot of blood that day so if I could have that would be my picture.

28. Finally had some fun when I went to a crop at my friend Kris' house. current favorite product is anything October Afternoon and Cosmo Cricket.

Week 3

2010-01-23T16:00:00.001-08:00

15. chocolate buffet on the cruise ship. yum.

16. nothing like spending a day on the beach...white sand, blue clear water, relaxation in the sun. bliss.

17. world's largest Crustacean. yikes, but a great photo-op nevertheless on our drive of the Florida Keys.

18. Found this and a bunch of other cow-tipping stuff during our layover in Ohio. For some reason this made me so totally happy!

19. Clink! Got together with old roomies from USU. We sure loved to clink. ;)

20. My closet is clean and organized for the first time in forever!!

21. Bought a washer and dryer! The framed picture is one from my Aunt Frances...old school tide commercial, I love it.

Scraplifting

2010-01-22T12:07:00.000-08:00

Write.Click.Scrapbook's articles this week have been perfect for me. I am an avid scraplifter, and relaly felt bad that I couldn't comeup with my own designs anymore...like I had scrapbooked every way possible that my poor incompetent brain had thought of. But no more. Instead I actually recognize that scraplifting is not a sin. Not only does it save major time (I scrap WAY faster than I used to...like 2 LO in 30 minutes vs 1 an hour...or a movie) but I recognized that I have at many times scraplifted from myself. While I have a pretty strict no reuse policy on paper and embellishments (there are just too many good choices out there) if you have a good LO that you love for some reason--reduce reuse recycle, I say! I especially like to scraplift layouts that use tons of pictures, but keep it looking clean. I have gotten to the point where I can generally afford only 1 LO per event...my storage space can't handle much more than that, so 2 page LO with tons of pictures are my friend.

Some things I have scraplifted recently from myself and others-- Unfortunetly I didn't keep good track of where these are coming from...but 100% guarentee they are either Becky Higgins, Scrapbook's Etc mags, Simple Scrapbooks mag, or CK mag. Thanks for the inspiration and feel free to scraplift and redesign any of these how ever you want--

These 3 LO have similar styles...collage of pictures on the right, 2-3 pics on the left. And signature to my style if I use an element on one page I have to use it at least once on the other page of 2 pg LO.

These LO are also all similar in style... Grouped pictures acting as one large picture and then a second picture orienting the other direction. This is the most common way I make my LOs...actually almost every 2 page LO has one that looks similar to these.

Using photos as a border is something else I do a lot of. PS aren't my puppies just cute!

This is my new favorite way to scrapbook lots of pictures. It is a simple clean design that gives you good speca for journaling and a title without making the LO feel cluttered. I have a lot more example of this but my camera battery died!

Want to learn more about scraplifting? Check out the rest of this weeks Write.Click.Scrapbook articles by Lain.

Happy Scrapping!

Week 2

2010-01-22T11:44:00.001-08:00

8. this is a machine that de-ices the wings of planes. This is typical in Utah, except I took this picture in GEORGIA because it had snowed in Atlanta that day.

9. We went gator spying on an Airboat tour and only found one, it was just too cold. Glad we saw one anyway.

10. At Everglades Natl. Park they have a problem with creepy vultures eating rubber off tires.

11. Finally on my Cruise aboard the Ship Norweigen Jewel. This is a day at sea, and never have I seen such vibrant and clear colors of blue water.

12. Monkey-ing around. At least the monkey here is at Gumbalimba park in Rotan, Honduras. "Who's evolved?!" -Night at the Museum

13. This is the only picture I managed to take that day...being sick on a boat is no bueno.

14. Costa Maya Mexico. Since I was sick and missed Belize, these were the only "Mayan ruins" I was able to see...at least it's shaped like a "J".

Florida Keys

2010-01-17T01:52:00.000-08:00

back in Florida we drove the keys...

Key lime and coconut pie

Pastry:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp sugar

dash of salt

1 egg yolk

1/3 cup butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Sift dry ingredients together. chop butter into mixture to make crumbly mix. Add sugar, egg yolk, and cold water until firm dough forms. Roll out dough and drape in pie pan. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden. Reduce oven temp to 325 degrees.

Filling:

1 1/4 cups coconut milk

2 eggs, separated

3-4 key limes, juiced and rind grated

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

In a saucepan, slowly add cornstarch and coconut milk. Stir continually until mix begins to boil. Cook for 3 minutes more until thickened, keep stirring. Remove from heat and add key lime juice, rind, egg yolks, and 1/4 cup sugar. Pour into pastry crust. Stiffen egg whites into meringue while whisking in 1/2 cup sugar. spread over filling and bake for 10-15 minutes. Garnish with key lime rind.

Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas

2010-01-16T01:47:00.000-08:00

Bahama-mama. It was hot, sunny, and beautiful...just kicked it on the beach.

Bahama-Mama's secret recipe cookies

1 Tbsp dark rum (or rum-flavoring)

2 eggs

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 cup macadamia or cashew nuts, chopped

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 cups flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup rasins (opt)

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp cloves

1 cup dates, chopped (opt)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together rum, butter, and brown sugar. Sift dry ingredients together and mix into rum butter mixture. Add dates, raisins, nuts. Arrange cookie dough on greased cookie sheets. Bake for 10 minutes.

Day at Sea #2

2010-01-14T01:38:00.000-08:00

The second day at sea was spent looking at the ocean, eating, looking at more ocean, and sleeping.

Fried Fish

6 pieces of fish

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp parsley

1/2 cup cold water

1 lime, juiced

2 1/2 Tbsp flour

1/2 tsp garlic salt or celery salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp thyme

1/2 cup vegetable oil

Sprinkle fish with lime juice. season with celery salt, ginger, pepper, thyme, and parsley. Let sit for 10-20 minutes. Mix flour and water into a thin batter. Coat fish on all sides. Heat oil and fry fish until golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper towel.

Costa Maya Mexico

2010-01-12T01:25:00.000-08:00

because I have been craving Empanadas and the day was spent in mexico... This is a link to a set of Empanada recipes on allrecipes.com