Clair's Creations

Best Waffles Ever!!

2011-12-30T22:32:00.000-06:00

I purchased this on Black Friday. It's not super heavy duty or anything, but it was one of those screaming deals that I just couldn't turn down:

I immediately made a batch of waffles just using some Krusteaz Mix which is my go to mix for pancakes. Love how the pancakes turn out, but wasn't really happy with the waffles. They were okay.....but just okay. I wanted something a little better. So then I tried the Bisquick mix. Love it for making chicken pot pie. Waffles.....not so much. So I headed to the internet to find a recipe.

This is the recipe that resulted after experimenting with a couple of batches. This batter is much runnier than the box mix batter, but the waffles came out light, fluffy and crispy.

Waffle Batter Recipe
1 1/3 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs separated
1/2 cup melted butter
1 1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

Mix together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Add in melted butter, milk, vanilla and egg yokes and mix well.

(Doesn't look very tasty yet!)

Place egg whites into mixer and beat until they start to get stiff (almost like you are making merengue)

Gently fold in the egg white mixture into your batter, just until you can't see them anymore.

Cook according to the directions of your waffle maker.

This makes more batter than I need for our family of five, but I usually just cook all of it and then put the cooked waffles in the fridge or freezer. Then I can just take them out and pop them in the toaster - they crisp right back.

Enjoy!

Advent Calendars

2011-12-05T23:15:00.000-06:00

Riley wanted this Lego Advent calendar this year. He has actually wanted one for several years and this year I was actually able to find one. (Note to self - look for advent calendars in September next time!)

The nice ones the girls were interested in were either sold out, or the sellers were over inflating the prices because they were so hard to find. So I ended up making my own.

I literally made these the morning of December 1st, so that they would be ready when the girls came home from school. Thank goodness for Amy of Living Locurto. She had some advent calendars available as a download on her amazing website.

I didn't quite make these quite like Amy did. I actually just stuck the punched out numbers to the background with double stick tape. Every day the girls pulled a number off and got to pick a prize out of a bag. Ella's prizes were Squinkies and Littlest Pet Shop toys. Ciara's prize was a jewelry kit that I broke down into little baggies. By Christmas she will have the entire kit. The girls loved these and couldn't wait to get their prize everyday.

Be sure to head over to Amy's site if you are ever in search of some really great ideas and printables.

Diabetic Friendly Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-11-01T17:43:00.000-05:00

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup Crisco Shortening

1/4 cup Splenda - Granulated

1/2 cup Splenda Brown Sugar Blend

2 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup milk chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside.

In medium size mixing bowl. Mix Splenda Granular Sugar, Splenda Brown Sugar Blend, Butter and Shortening till nice and fluffy. Add in vanilla. Add in eggs one at a time beating after each addition.

Add in flour gradually, and beat just until flour is incorporated. Mix in Chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded teaspoon onto an ungreased non stick cooking sheet. Flatten the cookies slightly and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

I like to use a small ice cream scoop when baking cookies. I flattened the cookies with the back of the scoop. I baked them on parchment lined cookie sheets. I got a total of 33 cookies.

Here's the nutritional info courtesy of LiveStrong

First Aid & CPR Training

2011-10-12T10:34:00.001-05:00

August 11th, 2011 - First Aid and CPR Training

Mark off in Faith in God: Developing Talents

Next Activity: October 18th - Plan for Fall Festival

Bring your ideas for decorating a room at Fall Festival

Since we recently had a lesson about babysitting, I thought it would be a great idea for the girls to learn about basic first aid and CPR. We are fortunate to have a former nurse in our ward, who was more than willing to come and teach the girls. The girls just love having guests come and teach the class.

Sister M. brought a CPR training doll with her that the girls were absolutely fascinated with. Her name is Annie. They each got a chance to perform chest compressions on CPR Annie. We also asked them to bring a baby doll to practice infant CPR.

Impromtu Trip to the Fabric Store

2011-08-12T21:30:00.000-05:00

August 9th, 2011 Activity

Shopping Trip to the Fabric Store

Mark off in Faith in God: Developing Talents

Next Activity: August 23rd - Sewing our Scripture Tote Bags

Bring Scissors and any other sewing notions you can use.

It's been a crazy couple of weeks when it comes to Activity Girls. We've had to cancel, re-schedule and come up with a new plan. Different things came into play: girls out of town, conflicts with other organizations, and an almost identical event as we had planned held by the Relief Society. Sigh!

Monday rolled around and I was still trying to figure out what we were going to do. Something my daughter said to me inspired me.

So on Tuesday night, when the girls showed up at the Stake Center, I told them we were going on a field trip. Of course they all wanted to know where we were going but I wouldn't tell them.

I'm such a meanie!

So as we were driving along, the girls started speculating. When we were on the freeway, they thought we were going back to my house. Then they thought maybe we were going out for a food treat. Then when we were driving through a residential neighborhood, they thought maybe we were going to one of the absent girls house. Or maybe to a member's house. So I said "Yep, you guessed it. We are going to a member's house and we are going carolling. Have you ever heard of Christmas in August?" "Nooooo" they all reply.

Finally I pulled into a parking lot. The fabric store was right there but they still didn't get it. So, with a completely straight face, I told them I brought them out here cause I was going to teach them how to drive. They actually looked at me for a few seconds with that confused look on their face. You know the one where they are actually trying to figure out if you are serious or not. "Um......Really sister Jordan?"

"Oh yeah! And if you are really good, next week I'll teach you how to hotwire cars!" "Awesome!!!" yelled Miss M! The other girls are now understandably skeptical.

So I finally point out the fabric store and tell them we are going shopping for fabric to sew our own Scripture Tote Bags.

I gave them the following instructions:

(To be on their best behavior, and remember who we were representing)

To pick out two complementary fabrics of their choice.

Both fabrics had to be on sale and I limited them to one section of the store.

I was really proud of the girls. They helped each other choose and were on their best behavior. When we went to the cutting table, we asked for half a yard of each fabric. The girls were very polite and thanked the associate that helped us. The cashier was nice enough to bag their fabric choices individually so each girls could hang on to their own.

See Toyota dealer guy.....this is why I need an eight seater van!

I had such a blast shopping with these girls. Their enthusiasm is so contagious.

It was also fun to see the different fabrics that each girl picked out. I felt like I could match the fabric to the girls based on their personalities.

Can't wait for us to sew up some cute tote bags.

Hopefully this will encourage the girls to bring their scriptures every Sunday!

Slow Roasted St Louis Style Ribs

2011-08-06T16:31:00.000-05:00

I like Ribs but I don't love them slathered in BBQ sauce like most people do. I found this great recipe for a dry rub. The great thing is, you can slow cook them in this rub and then finish them off on the grill. Then if you are a sauce lover, you can slather it on and they still taste great. And the best part......the meat just falls right off the bone!

Dry Rub for Ribs

1/2 cup sugar

1/8 cup salt

1 1/2 tablespoon black pepper

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon garlic powder

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Trim excess fat of the ribs. My favorite to use lately has been St Louis Style. Generously pat the rub onto the ribs. I usually use half of the above rub on two racks of ribs and just save the rest in a Ziplock bag.

If I happen to plan ahead, (Hey it does happen once in a while!) I'll put the rub on the ribs the night before and just leave them overnight in the fridge. Or you can do it first thing in the morning if you don't plan on eating until later in the day. I like to use those disposable foil pans. I cut the ribs into sections of about 3-4 bones each and usually place about one rack in each pan. (I will admit however, that I have made these without any "marinating" time. Just put the rub on, and popped in the oven. They were still delicious!)

About three hours before our planned dinner time, I place them into a 250 degree oven and just leave them in there for about two and a half hours till nice and tender.

Then I hand them off to the hubby and he pops them onto a nice hot grill. Half of them get slathered in BBQ sauce. Around here, it's just something out of a bottle, but you could whip up your favorite award winning recipe if you like. Half of them stay plain jane! They don't have to stay on the grill long, just long enough to get a nice crust!

Get out some napkins and enjoy!

Itty bitty Quiches

2011-08-06T14:09:00.000-05:00

With the first day of school right around the corner, I was digging around looking for some quick options for breakfast for my picky little eater as well as some lunch options.

My little one loves quiche so I thought we would give this recipe a try. Unlike a previous recipe that we tried that was disgusting that one came out quite yummy. And it's fun for the kiddo's to help out with too.

I adapted this from a recipe I found on Eating Well

5 eggs
3 egg whites
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded cheese
8oz cubed ham and turkey
1/8 tsp seasoned salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Because I am lazy and don't like to scrub pots and pans I lined a regular muffin pan with paper liners and then sprayed them with pan. I really don't want these quiches to stick!

In a large measuring cup, beat the eggs and milk together along with your seasonings. I used 2% milk cause that's what was in my fridge. You could even use egg beaters if that's what floats your boat.

In the lined muffin cups, evenly distribute the cheese and the ham and turkey. I used some chopped fresh deli meat. You can use anything you love in quiche here. (Or that your picky eater kid will eat!) Sausage, mushrooms, spinach, asparagus, bacon, green onions etc. Use any kind of cheese that you like too. I used a shredded cheese blend. Next pour in your egg mixture. I had enough for 11 mini quiches.

Pop them in the oven and bake for 25 mins until nice and golden brown. Allow to cool in pan for about 5 minutes and then remove them to a wire rack. Refrigerate any leftovers for up to 3 days.

If these are a big hit in your household, make a big batch of them and you can freeze them for up to a month. Once fully cooled, wrap in plastic and place in freezer. To reheat, remove plastic, wrap in a paper towel and microwave on High for 30 to 60 seconds.

Happy Birthday Girls!

2011-07-23T22:41:00.002-05:00

Although I had the best of intentions to plan ahead this year, my daughter's birthday party still managed to sneak up on me. At least I managed to get the invites out thanks to this cool website called Paperless Post.

It's like a fancier version of evite. Your card even includes an envelope

The website allows you to track who has opened the invites, who has replied and send reminders to your guests.

My sweet baby girl turned 5. We also STILL needed to celebrate my other daughter's birthday. She turned 9 back in May. Her birthday always coincides with the end of the school year which makes picking a party date really difficult.

Due to a minor surgery the hubs had to have, I decided to have the party at Pump It Up. And let me tell you it was money well spent! No mess in my house and the kids LOVED it.

I took the little one over to a party supply store and she picked out some favors for goody bags. I think she did a pretty good job.

For the girls: Journal, mini paint set, mini rubix cube, mini frisbee, pencil top eraser, a package of candy, some tattoo's and some of our favorite jello flavored popcorn.

For the boys: Same as above but instead of the journal,

they got some cute cards with animals on them.

We made some jello flavored popcorn for the gift bags with a little tag that said "Thanks for poppin' in." The popcorn was supposed to be pink and purple to match our color scheme. It ended up being red and I'm not sure what you would call the second color. We didn't have time to re-do it and it still tasted yummy.

Free printable Bag Tag found here

We also planned to include these in the goody bags. However due to the fact that we made them last minute, and that it's hotter than Haides here and we didn't have any room in the fridge, they didn't dry in time for us to bag them up.

Giant marshmallows dipped in chocolate and covered in sprinkles.

Can you say Sugar Rush?

And of course we had to have cupcakes. My bad photography makes these look they have chocolate frosting on them but the cupcakes themselves were half chocolate, half vanilla and topped with a light pink or deep purple Buttercream frosting. Both sets of cupcake liners came from Michaels.

Even though I had very little to do for this party, and not all of it came out perfect, the kids had a great time. And in the end, I guess that's all that matters!

7up Biscuits

2011-07-20T17:37:00.000-05:00

This biscuit recipe is my new favorite. It's quick and easy and you probably already have everything in your fridge and pantry. It makes really light and fluffy biscuits in mere minutes.

I would call this recipe semi-homemade cause it starts off with Bisquick. I stumbled across this recipe on a blog called Plainchicken.com Such a cute name. Her food looks yummy and her photography skills are much better than mine.

So here's what you need:

Yep, that's all.

2 cups of Bisquick mix

1/2 cup of sour cream

1/2 cup of 7Up.

You will also need some butter for the bottom of your pan.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium size bowl, cut the sour cream into the Bisquick using a fork. Add in the 7Up and mix until just combined.

I use a large cutting board for the next part. Generously sprinkle your board (or counter top etc) with some Bisquick mix. (If you barely had two cups of Bisquick mix, like I did, just use some flour) The mixture will be pretty sticky. I also dusted my hands with flour. Pat the mixture flat (I don't recommend using a rolling pin) and cut biscuits. I didn't even bust out a cutter here - I just used a glass cause it was handy.

Melt about 1/4 cup of butter in the bottom of the pan.

Recipe says to place in a 9 x 9 inch square pan, but I didn't have one handy, so I just placed my cut biscuits into a pie pan.

If you place the biscuits close together, they will stay nice and soft on the side. I used a pastry brush and took a little butter out of the bottom and brushed the tops.

Bake for about 15 minutes and...........

Load them up with butter, honey, jam or whatever you like in your biscuit.

Easy, quick and yummy!

Nutella Stuffed French Toast

2011-07-12T15:19:00.000-05:00

My dad was here visiting from England for five weeks but had to return home today. My four year old was a little sad when we got home from the airport and declared that we needed to have french toast for lunch. Since the men folk are at scout camp this week, and it's just us girls now, I figured why not! And since it's bathing suit season, lets see how we can make this a little more fattening shall we? Since chocolate makes everything better - we added some Nutella.

I started out with my standard French Toast recipe:

3 eggs

1/2 cup heavy cream*

1/2 cup milk

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

In a bowl big enough to fit the bread you will be using, lightly beat the eggs, add in the milk, cream, salt, vanilla and cinnamon and whisk lightly until everything is just blended together.

Today, because we are making french toast on demand, we are using whatever happens to be in the breadbox, which is plain old white Wonder Bread.** Take two slices of the bread of your choice and glue them together with some Nutella. (Remind your four year old not to stick the knife back in the jar after you she licks it clean!)

Heat a skillet over medium high heat. If you are like my husband or Paula Deen, or feel like this recipe does not already have enough calories for you, melt a teaspoon of butter in the bottom of the pan. I personally just like to spray it with some non stick cooking spray. Because the Wonder Bread is pretty thin, I pretty much just dipped each side of the Nutella sandwich in the egg/milk mixture and let the excess drip off. If your bread is thicker, you can let it sit in the mixture for about 30 seconds.

You know the drill here right? Fry it on each side until nice and toasty and golden brown. If you'd like a little extra sweetness or maybe you are just trying to blow your calorie counting completely out of the water, dust it lightly with some powdered sugar.

Or, if you are a purist, (or maybe your stomach hurts a little like my nine year old today) you omit Nutella and go with Powdered Sugar and Syrup. Whatever floats your boat - it all good!

*You can use a whole cup of milk, or a whole cup of half and half or any combination of milk and cream or half and half that you would like here. I always have heavy cream in my fridge and I like the richness it adds.

**My favorite bread to use for French Toast is Wonder Bread Texas Toast. It's the perfect thickness while still being nice and soft. Day old bread tends to work better because really fresh bread can get a little soggy. You can make French Bread with any kind of bread that you love. Try making it with Cinnamon Bread or Raisin Bread. Yum!

Pen Pals

2011-07-07T23:24:00.001-05:00

July 5th, 2011 Activity

Writing to our PenPals &

Practicing to sing in Sacrament Meeting

Mark off in Faith in God: Developing Talents

Next Activity: July 19th - Cancelled :(

See you August 2nd for the Mommy and Me Tea!

The current author of this blog that I like to visit to get ideas for our Activity Girls broached the idea of matching girls up from different wards to be Pen Pals. It immediately reminded me of my childhood. Remember back in the day when all correspondence was via snail mail? I lived in England at the time and had a Pen Pal in France. I loved sending and receiving letters and learning something about this girl in a different part of the world then me.

I love this idea for many reasons.

I think it will be so much fun for the girls to get to know other girls their age in a different ward.
Writing an old fashioned letter is a great skill for them to learn. I encouraged them to use proper punctuation and spelling. (No LOL, BFF etc)
It passes off a requirement for Faith in God - Developing Talents

Our girls were matched up with some girls from a ward in Cedar Hills Utah.

Each girls wrote a letter on some pretty stationary. We decorated the envelopes. Before we sealed the envelopes, I (or a parent) checked each letter to make sure it didn't include too much personal info. (no last names, phone numbers, email addresses etc) Once we add in some little gifts and photos, it will be sent of to the girls leader in Utah.

We can't wait to hear back from them!

Pool Party!

2011-07-07T23:17:00.001-05:00

June 30th, 2011 Activity

Pool Party

Mark off in Faith in God: Just For Fun!

Next Activity: July 5th - Practice to sing in Sacrament Meeting

& Writing Letters to our Pen Pals.

Meet at 7 p.m. at the Stake Center.

This week we had to move the date of our regularly scheduled Tuesday night meeting because the Youth were attending the Temple on the same night. For the sake of parents sanity, and also because of the terrible gas prices, we try to avoid having parents running kids to all kinds of different locations.

Also, I was on vacation visiting my sister and my Co-Leader wanted to wait to have this party till I was back and boy was I glad she did!!!

This activity didn't really satisfy a requirement in the Faith in God program - It was just for fun! My Co-Leader hosted a swim party for the girls and their families at her home. We had such a blast swimming followed by a yummy dinner of BBQ'ed hamburgers and hotdogs, fresh fruit, chips and dip and the most delicious homemade macaroni and cheese. And did I mention the brownies? Chocolate doesn't really agree with me but they looked soo good, I just couldn't resist trying one! Sister Canaday was most definitely the Hostess with the Mostess!!! Thank you for opening your home to us - everyone had a great time!

Father's Day - Folded Shirt Card

2011-06-11T22:31:00.002-05:00

I came across this cute card for Father's Day on Martha Stewart's Website. I wanted to make these with the Activity Girls to go along with a Father's Day Gift we were making. Problem was, the instructions on the website didn't seem to make a lot of sense.

With a little bit of trial and error, I got it figured out. I started with a 12"x12" piece of scrapbook paper that I cut down to 7 1/2" x 12". Basically you can use any size that is skinny rectangle.

Have fun embellishing with a tie, bow tie, pocket or buttons!

Father's Day Gift - Candles

2011-06-11T20:35:00.003-05:00

June 7th, 2011 Activity

Mark off in Faith in God: Serving Others
and Developing Talents

Next Activity: June 30th - Pool Party!

(Hosted by Sister Canaday)

Dads: Don't read until after Father's Day!!

This past week, we helped the girls make candles and cards for gifts for their dad's. We started by making these cute little cards. Each girl picked their own pattern of paper and then I showed them step by step how to fold it. Each one of them added their own unique touch: a bow tie, buttons, a tie or a nametag. Look at the green shirt below - the girlie who made it added a piece of real tissue in the pocket! I love how creative these girls are!

Since we have a few days to spare till Father's Day, we also decorated bags for them to keep their gift in.

We made our own candles from scratch. Not only did we make a handmade gift for the dads but we got to learn a new craft too. Each girls picked out what color candle she wanted as well as the scent. I found a scent which was a knockoff of the cologne "Cool Water." Very manly smelling. Some girls opted to go with more girlie scents like cinnamon bun or caramel apple.

We attached a cute label that said "A Scentimental gift, for a very special Dad"

Happy Father's Day to all the Special Dad's out there.

Decorating Journals

2011-06-03T07:35:00.001-05:00

May 17th, 2011 Activity

Mark off in Faith in God: Serving Others
and Living and Learning the Gospel

Next Activity: June 7th - Father's Day Gifts.

(Meet at Sister Jordan's House)

One of the goals of the Activity Girls Program is to help the girls complete Faith In God. The Faith in God program encourages the girls to journal so this week I thought it would be fun for them to decorate their own journals.

We started out with plain wirebound notebooks. Just the simple one subject ones that kids take to school. I printed out their names in different colors and fonts and I supplied scrapbook paper,stickers, ,embellishements, decorative scissors and lots of glue. (I think I need to invest in a few more glue guns!)

I was really impressed with the girls creativity! They had a lot of fun decorating the journals to suit their own personal style.

You know the activity is a success when our time is up for the night and the girls ask if we can stay "Just five more minutes?"

Red, White and Blue Popcorn

2011-05-29T18:34:00.000-05:00

My girls fell in love with this "Jello Popcorn" recipe that we tried out last week. This week we decided to make some red, white and blue popcorn in honor of Memorial Day. It's super easy to make and odds are, you have everything in your pantry already.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees

Spray a medium size saucepan, wooden spoon. large mixing bowl and a baking sheet really well with Pam. (I actually lined my baking sheet with parchment paper before spraying with Pam to make it easier to clean up)

I popped two bags of popcorn in the microwave and placed it in the large bowl. (Try to get rid of the unpopped kernels)

In the medium size saucepan, mix all the following well, and over medium-high heat bring to a boil. Continue to let it boil while stirring it, for about 3 or 4 minutes, till it is nice and thick.

1/2 cup margerine

1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon corn syrup

3 tablespoons water

Jello mix (3oz box)

Pour the Jello mixture onto the popcorn and stir it until the all the popcorn is well coated. Pour the popcorn onto the Pam coated baking sheet. Bake it for 20 mins, stirring once halfway through.

Remove from oven and place cookie sheet on a wire cooling rack, or transfer popcorn to another baking sheet lined with foil. When cool break apart into small pieces.

For the red popcorn, I used strawberry flavored jello, for the blue popcorn I used berry blue. For the white, I just left the popcorn plain. If you wanted to go all sweet you could use microwave kettle corn instead. The Berry Blue Jello was a little bit lighter blue than I had envisioned so I dropped in two drops of food color to darken it a little.

My girls had fun measuring out the ingredients and then bagging it up to give away to their friends! Think of all the fun colors you can mix up for different holidays!

Mother's Day "Sundaes"

2011-05-29T17:17:00.005-05:00

May 3rd, 2011 Activity

Mark off in Faith in God: Service to Others

Tonight was Activity Girls and it was actually my Co-Leaders turn to plan the activity but she called me this morning and said she had Pneumonia. To top it off, my day was already busy baking treats for some of my kids teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week. Eek!

Thankfully I had seen this cute idea for a Mother's Day gift a couple of weeks ago.

I found the bath salts and the scrubby sponges at the dollar store. The bath salts were a dollar a jar, and each jar made two sundaes. The scrubby's were two for a dollar and came in white and purple. While at the dollar store I also found some razor's that had cute twirly round handles that kind of looked like straws or maybe the handle of a spoon, and they were five for a dollar.

Next door to the dollar store is a Baskin Robbins and little Ella insisted we stop in for some Cotton Candy ice cream. While we were in there, I asked if I could buy some of their sundae cups. They were only 25 cents apiece and saved me having to hunt for them elsewhere. (I might have indulged in a scoop of ice cream while I was there. It might have come in a waffle cone.)

The only thing I still needed was something for the "cherry on top." I thought about using tiny little red tea light candles but they were kind of expensive. I looked for some red candy but couldn't find anything appealing. While standing in line at the checkout stand at my grocery store, I saw some Ferrero Roche Chocolates and thought that would make a cute topper.

The rest of the stuff, paper to make the little sundae cards, glue sticks, etc I already had in my scrapbooking stash.

The girls and I had a great time making these cute little gifts. Because it's Teacher Appreciation Week some of the girls opted to make them for their teachers instead which I thought was a great idea. We put them in brown paper lunch sacks and tied on the handmade sundae card with some colorful ribbon. They almost looked good enough to eat!

Easter Baskets and AOF Egg Hunt

2011-05-29T17:00:00.004-05:00

April 19th, 2011

Mark off in Faith in God: Articles of Faith

The weather was not very cooperative tonight. I was sure activities would be cancelled for the night, but they were not. We had really severe weather warnings and I tried to call the girls and cancel last minute, but could not get a hold of everyone, so we set off for the church. It hailed almost all the way there.

I was quite surprised how many girls eventually showed up to the church, so even though we started a little late, we went ahead with a lesson.

To start off, we prepared these baskets:

For our next part of the activity, I had two sets of 26 plastic eggs. I cut up the 13 articles of faith and stuffed them into the eggs along with a piece of candy. My original plan was to have an Egg Hunt, but the tornado sirens kept going off. We ended up just dividing into two teams in the hallway.

Each team took a set of eggs, they split the candy between their team and then had to put the Articles of Faith back together.

When we had about 10 mins left, I gave them a printed list of the Articles of Faith to help them along a little. Once we had them all put together, each team took turns reciting them in order.

A New Calling - Activity Girls

2011-05-20T18:30:00.006-05:00

Back in October, I was released from my big calling as Primary President. Primary is the Children's Organization in our church for children ages 18 mos to 11 years old. Since then my hubby and I had quietly been serving as Ward Missionaries. (Assisting the missionaries serving full time missions) Then Chris, got a new calling as President of the Young Men's Organization which meant I couldn't really serve as a ward missionary anymore. We don't have any full time female missionaries serving in our ward, and the women aren't allowed to go out with the full time male missionaries unless accompanied by another male. I don't know if any of that made any sense, but basically it's a lot easier for a female serving as a ward missionary to do so with her husband as her companion.

So anyway. I was released from my calling as ward missionary. And extended a new calling. As Co Activity Days Leader. Activity Days is a program for the 8-11 year old girls in our church. I was pretty excited because my daughter is currently participating in the program.

My first week with the girls, my co leader prepared the lesson. Since it was close to Easter she brought some cute Easter crafts for them to make. Cute door hangers and picture frames.

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I look forward to working with these sweet girls, they are so much fun!

Emma's Garden

2011-03-30T22:08:00.001-05:00

Last night at church, we had a dinner to celebrate the birthday of the Relief Society. The Relief Society is the women's organization in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In fact it is the oldest and largest women's organization in the world! If you would like to learn more about it you can go here.

The theme for the night was Emma's garden. Emma was the wife of Joseph Smith and the first president of the Relief Society. The ladies of our ward put on amazing program. We had a yummy light dinner of quiche, cucumber sandwiches, chicken salad sandwiches, various salads and fruit.

The decorations were really cute. At each individual place setting there was a little potted flower for each lady to take home. The stage was set up to look like Emma was having a garden party. A small play was presented where each one of the presidents of the Relief Society visited Emma and told a little bit about herself. In between a narrator spoke a little about what was going on in the world or about that era while the Young Women acted it out. They even had a barbershop quartet which I think was everyone's favorite!

A couple of weeks ago, one of the ladies asked me if I would be willing to to dessert. I was a little stressed out about the theme at first. I wasn't sure what to do for a garden theme. I ended up doing cupcakes and may have taken the garden/flower theme slightly overboard.

I entertained the idea of baking cupcakes directly in flowerpots. But I worried about how people would eat it and also the cost of buying 6o little flowerpots was just not in the budget! So, I hand cut these wrappers. I used a cardstock that I though looked like Terracotta and hot glued some flowers on to them. If I had more time I probably would have added some cute leaf's.

This cupcake was a chocolate cupcake filled with chocolate mousse and topped with a chocolate ganache. The flower on top I molded using candy melts.

These cupcakes were strawberry. I made them using a homemade strawberry jam that my visiting teacher brought me one day. I topped them with plain buttercream frosting and another molded chocolate flower.

These cupcakes were vanilla with vanilla buttercream that I tinted yellow. I made the flowers with some marshmallow fondant and dusted them with some pink edible glitter. I bought these cute cupcake liners - they are made by Wilton.

The main thing I learned while making 6o cupcakes? I need more counter space and more cupcake pans!

A special thank you to all the wonderful ladies who contributed to this night - it really was a lovely evening.

Cherry Cake Pudding

2011-01-30T22:39:00.000-06:00

When I logged on the The Pioneer Woman's website early one morning and saw a picture of this Cherry Cake Pudding, I immediately wanted to whip some up because licking my monitor wasn't working out so well for me.

This recipe is really easy to make, and of course you can see the wonderful step by step pictures on The Pioneer Woman's website. I broke my cardinal rule and served a new recipe to guests, but she has never lead my wrong. It was pretty delicious. Ciara begged me to make another batch as soon as the last serving was gone.

I used a different brand of Cherries that I just love from Trader Joe's. Maybe the syrup that came with these cherries was sweeter, but I thought the sauce was a little sweet. I would definitely cut down on the sugar next time. Oh, and I left out the nuts. I love them personally, but since we had guests, I thought it best to leave them out. I'm sure you could probably make this would whatever fruit happens to be your favorite.

Pioneer Woman's Cherry Cake Pudding

1 cup Sugar
2 Tablespoons Butter, Softened
1 whole Egg
1 cup All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
⅛ teaspoons Salt
½ cups Whole Milk
1 can (15 Ounces) Cherries In Syrup (NOT Cherry Pie Filling) Drained, Juice Reserved
½ cups Pecans, Finely Chopped

1 cup Juice From Cherries (add Water To Make 1 Cup If Necessary)
1 cup Sugar
1 Tablespoon All-purpose Flour
1 Tablespoon Butter
½ teaspoons Vanilla Extract
Unsweetened Freshly Whipped Cream

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Generously butter a square 9 x 9-inch baking dish.

Cream sugar and butter. Add egg and mix well. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt then add to mixing bowl alternatively with milk. Add cherries and chopped nuts and mix gently. Pour batter into buttered pan and smooth out the surface. Bake for 40 minutes, or until golden brown on the surface and no longer jiggly.

While cake is baking, make the sauce by combining cherry juice, sugar, and flour in a small saucepan. Boil for 8 to 10 minutes, or until thick. Turn off heat and stir in 1 tablespoon butter and vanilla extract.

Drizzle 1/3 of the sauce on the cake as soon as you remove it from the oven. Spread to distribute over the surface and wait ten minutes before serving so the sauce will seep into the top of the cake a bit.

Spoon out pieces of warm, sticky cake and top with unsweetened whipped cream.

Brine for Turkey or Chicken

2011-01-18T12:43:00.000-06:00

1/2 gallon water (8 cups)

1/2 cup apple juice

1/2 cup salt

1 clove garlic chopped

1/2 cup brown sugar

1-2 bay leafs

3/4 tablespoons black pepper

orange peel from one orange

You will probably need to double this recipe for a turkey.

I have often heard TV chefs talking about brining turkeys and about how wonderful and juicy it makes the turkey. Brining basically means soaking in a salt water solution. I've never brined a turkey before. My hubby is not a turkey lover, my kids only like the white meat, we rarely host thanksgiving or Christmas day, so I usually just cook a large turkey breast on the rare occasion that turkey is cooked in our house.

But on a trip to Trader Joe's we found some really nice fresh organic turkey breast and since I love Turkey I decided to get some. I thought I would try brining it and used this recipe that I adapted from a recipe that The Pioneer Woman uses. Since it was just a breast, I prepared mine mid morning and only left it in the fridge till evening when we cooked dinner - not overnight as you would if you cooked a large turkey.

Basically, I just took all the above ingredients, combined them in a large pot, and brought them to a boil. (Make sure to give it a stir once in a while to dissolve the salt and sugar) I allowed it to boil for a few minutes. Turn off the heat and let it cool. Once cooled I put the turkey breast into a large ziplock and poured in the brine and just let it sit in the fridge till I was ready to cook it.

When ready to cook, remove from the brine and rinse under cold water, pat dry and then prepare as your normally would. When I served the finished dinner, the first words out of Chris's mouth were "Wow, this turkey is really juicy!"

I will definitely try this again, maybe even when roasting a chicken.

Itty Bitty Clothes

2010-12-29T12:35:00.001-06:00

Once again this is not my creation. I am not this talented and do not have enough time to tackle a project like this.

You are not going to believe these clothes. Seriously, I had seen a set of them before and was still shocked. If you are not sitting down, sit.

My mother in law, Mari, gave this doll to my four your old Ella.

By itself not that big of a deal right? You'll recognize it as a Cabbage Patch Doll.

But along with it, came these:

Hand made outfits. I've seen children who don't have clothes this nice. Seriously, clothes that you buy in the store are not finished this well.

The edges are finished, the insides are lined.

Check out this one, this was everyone's favorite:

Yes, she actually made that. By hand. Even the boots. Can you believe those boots. The grownups in the room took the doll away from Ella to play with it and dress it up.

We couldn't get enough of those boots.

I'm wondering if she can make them in a women's size 8?

By the way, Ella has as an imaginary friend named Maisa Daisa, so that's what is printed on the dolls Birth Certificate. Here is Maisa Daisa dressed up for bed.

She even has matching slippers to keep her feeties warm!

Here are a few other outfits:

Check out the guess logo on the back of the pants!

Number One Room Mom!

2010-12-28T11:04:00.001-06:00

This actually isn't one of my creations, but is such a cute idea, I definitely plan on ~~stealing~~ borrowing the concept.

I love being able to help out in my kids classes at school. Especially since each one of my kids has an awesome teacher.

Riley's teacher Mrs O. is incredible! We just love her. She also happened to be his 5th grade teacher and she and the entire class moved up to 6th grade together. Did I mention she was teacher of the year in our district last year? She is such a fun teacher but firm at the same time.

About two weeks before Christmas, I stuck my head into her classroom for some reason, and she said she had a gift for me, but just couldn't hold on to it until Christmas. And she gave me this cute little thing:

Is this not the cutest little gift ever? The red thing is a actually a pot holder/oven mitt. Inside the pastry bag is sugar cookie mix and of course there is the spatula and some sprinkles. Tied into the ribbon is a cookie cutter. Mrs. O. knows that I love to make cookies and I love how personalized this gift is to my taste. And I feel like I won an award: "#1 Room Mom!"

I actually did steal, I mean utilize, this idea for my sister for Christmas. She loves Lemon Bars and asked if I would make her some since she is in town for the holidays this year. I made her some of course, but I also found a cute yellow mixing bowl, a yellow oven mitt, yellow spatula, yellow measuring cups and a whisk. I put all the dry ingredients into two disposable pastry bags and included the recipe on a laminated card. I arranged everything in the bowl and filled the empty space with fresh lemons. The possibilities really are endless if you would like to make a custom little kitchen gift.

So thanks Mrs O. We love you!

Our Family Christmas Card

2010-12-26T20:44:00.000-06:00

Last year I bought some really cute Christmas cards, stuck photos in them and addressed them all. All that was needed was a trip to the post office.

Those cards are still in my office in the basement!

This year, I was really struggling with the whole Christmas Card issue. My camera broke in November and I didn't have a really cute family picture to use for our cards. I kept pushing the cards to the bottom of my to do list. Then one day when blog hopping, I stumbled upon this blog and her cute card that she did last year. So, I quickly started taking pictures, but had a few little problems. First of all Chris was out of town on business. Next I was just using a Nikon Coolpix point and click and was having some issues with color. (As you can see in Ella's picture)

My final issue, was when Chris got home, we quickly took a picture and I started editing the pictures together. Only he wasn't holding the white board we all used as a prop very flat, which made adding the picture onto his board a little tricky. So then I had to take his picture into Illustrator and try and fix it.

So this was my final product. Marissa's version at Threaded Together is much cleaner but all in all, I'm pretty happy with it, considering the time frame I had to put it all together and the different circumstances. I used Adobe CS3 for the editing and just had the cards printed at Walgreens.

The Best Visiting Teacher Ever!!!

2010-12-08T00:35:00.000-06:00

In our church we have a program called Visiting Teaching. Ladies are assigned a Visiting Teacher who checks in on them once a month and share a short spiritual message. My Visiting Teacher is amazing. She also happens to be my neighbor.

She is the mom to 13 kids. She and her husband just celebrated 50 years of marriage. She bakes the most amazing bread. We have an auction at our church every year and people outbid each other like crazy to get her bread. But I get the bread delivered straight to my door, right out of the oven. And let me tell you...I brag about this a lot!!

Last month, for my birthday, she brought over some beautiful pink carnations for me. I still needed to return her vase but I didn't want to return it empty. On a little trip to Michaels I found these branch thingies that were 40% off. (I have no idea what the proper name for them is) I also found some ornaments in the clearance bin. After I cut the branches to the right size, my 4 year old literally put this together!

My bad photography doesn't capture this, but the branches have really pretty sparkles on them. We added a colorful bow and Voila! A quick and easy little something to add to your Holiday decor. I would advise if making one for yourself, that you maybe add some glass beads to the bottom of the vase to weigh it down a little to counterbalance the height of the branches. Unfortunately I had to quickly get this out of our house because our Kitty thought this was made especially just for her.

Sorry kitty, my friend loved and wants to keep it!

Sshh! Princess's Sleeping!

2010-11-12T15:12:00.001-06:00

I just love the vinyl lettering that you can apply right onto walls. Long before the craze of Cricut's, Sillhouette's and other cutting machines that allow you to cut vinyl on a whim; my friend introduced me to this website: It's a Sign!

Since I am not lucky enough to own one of the above mentioned machines, I still love to visit the website and covet the things I see there. (I have neither enough money or wall space!)

So, I while back I made these for my daughters:

(There's a lamp hanging directly above here, so the color is a little distorted. The wall is actually lilac, as you will see in the next picture.)

My girls room is done in lilac and pink. I picked out this design and simply put a request in the notes section detailing the colors I wanted when I paid for the order. Lisa is great. If you want something custom made, just contact her.

I originally intended to apply this vinyl directly to the wall but decided against it for two reasons. First of all, we live in an old house and some of the walls have texture. I was afraid the vinyl wouldn't stick properly. (I was probably wrong - see below) The second reason is that my girls share a room. When I originally made these, my little one was in the crib and we weren't sure if we were going to end up with two twin beds or bunk beds and what configuration the beds were going to go in. I wanted to be able to move things around as needed.

So, I ended up buying 2 white frames from Michaels. I cut some scrapbook paper down to 11.5 x 11.5 to fit in the frame. I selected a white background with subtle purple dots. Then I laid the vinyl onto the paper. Instructions are included. Vinyl is repositionable on your wall, but you will need to be a little more careful on paper. (If you notice, the design I actually chose has an oval around but I opted not to use that as it didn't fit in the frame) I used some pink ribbon I had laying around and looped it through the existing hanger on the frame and tied it into a bow. And voila - wall art for my two princesses!

Remember how I said I didn't think the vinyl would stick to the textured wall? I found this vinyl princess castle set online and decided to give it a shot. Not only did it stick just fine, my little one has peeled it off about a million times, and we have put it back up and it always stays!

Spooky Skull Crayons

2010-10-27T23:06:00.000-05:00

I was making a little Halloween care package to send to my nieces and nephew in Las Vegas and I came across this cute idea from Homemade by Jill. Custom made crayons! Just too cute. I decided I needed to make some to add to my package.

I found this ice cube tray at Party City and thought it would make a cute mold for the crayons. I did like the end result but it took a lot of crayons to fill the individual molds and they didn't come out of the molds as easily as the cheaper candy molds. Spraying the mold with Pam cooking spray helped a little. It did take some effort to get clean once the crayons were unmolded.

The next mold I used was a very inexpensive candy mold that I got from Michaels. It worked great!

The mold size was perfect. Once the crayons set up, they released from the molds with no effort at all and cleaned up really easily with warm water and soap.

Making the crayons was a pretty easy process - you can check out Jill's post for her instructions. I simply grouped similar colors of crayons together, peeled off the wrapper, broke them up into small pieces and melted them using the double boiler method. I covered a bowl with foil to make it easy to clean. I was also able to fold the foil into a little spout to pour out the melted wax.

The best piece of advice I can give you? Absolutely DO NOT use cheap crayons!!!!! I started out using Crayola Brand, then switched to a cheap no name brand. They didn't melt nicely and look at the difference when molded - not smooth or shiny. And they crumbled after I unmolded them. I switched back to Crayola brand and everything worked just great again.

Quiche - It's the Stuff that starts Wars!

2010-10-22T15:20:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine asked me if I had any ideas for what she could serve for a luncheon she is hosting. She wanted to serve something that would show off her Mother In Law's gorgeous china set. I thought a slice of Quiche would look pretty on the plate. Plus it's pretty versatile, one's you get down an egg and cheese mixture that you like you can add in any variety of ingredients that you like such as veggies or seafood. So, I told her my friend I would send her over my recipe. Then I was craving quiche so I decided to make one.

Funny thing is, no one in my house usually eats it. On occasion my oldest daughter does. So I made the quiche for lunch. Gave my friend and her husband a slice each and I ate one. The next day my incredibly picky eater son noticed the leftovers in the fridge at breakfast time and asked if he could have some and declared it the most delicious breakfast ever!! By the next morning there was only one slice left. My son wanted it and so did my daughter. We were already having one of "those" morning and now they were fighting over quiche of all things!! There was screaming, yelling, name calling. My son was even trying to outwit my daughter with detailed "logical" arguments of why he should get to eat the quiche. She declared possession is 9/10th of the law and ate it. Needless to say I ended up making another quiche that evening. Next time I just need to remember to never leave just ONE slice in the fridge!

Basic Quiche Recipe

Pastry for 9" one Crust Pie

1 1/2 cups cheese grated

4 large eggs

1 3/4 cups heavy cream

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Filling of your choice*

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Make the pie crust of your choice, or if you are like me get one out the freezer and let it defrost. I always buy the Pillsbury kind cause I can keep them in the freezer and they taste good and I love the convenience. Place the pie crust in your pie plate and make the edges looks fancy or rustic or however you like it.

At this point I usually pop the pie plate into the fridge while I get the rest of the stuff together to keep my crust from getting too soft.

Next, you'll need to grate some cheese. The original recipe called for Swiss which is not a big favorite in my household, so I usually do two thirds cheddar and one third swiss or mozzarella. Try to use cheeses that you wouldn't mind eating a slice of.

In a large bowl, lightly beat the eggs, add in the cream, salt, pepper and dry mustard. If you're the kind that like's Tabasco on your eggs and you want to spice it up a little you can add it a touch of cayenne pepper. Give it a stir and make sure it's all mixed together.

Get that crust lined pie plate back out of the fridge and sprinkle it with the cheese and fillings of your choice.*

Pour the egg mixture over the top. Make sure it's not filled completely to the top because it will puff up and if it's filled all the way to the top it will overflow and make a mess.

Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees than bake for another 30 minutes. Knife inserted in center should come out clean. (If your quiche starts getting too dark, cover it with a piece of foil)

Let the quiche stand for 5-10 minutes before cutting and serving.

*Bacon is a big hit in the quiche in our house. About 8 slices cooked crisply and crumbled usually does it. Turkey bacon works fine too. I have put in broccoli and diced ham too which was yummy and I had a delicious quiche at a restaurant that had asparagus in it.

Tea Towel Wedding Gift

2010-10-13T22:04:00.000-05:00

A while ago, I saw the most adorable tutorial on Aly & Ash for a Mother's Day Tea Towel Cake. I thought it was really cute, but both my mother and mother-in-law have well established kitchens so I didn't really have any use for it at the time but I loved it, so I book-marked it.

This past weekend my hubby and I attended the wedding reception of one of his coworkers. I just love weddings and they were the cutest couple.

By the time I finally took a peek at the registry to buy them a gift, most of the stuff they registered for, had already been purchased. Left on the list were were various kitchen utensils, dish towels etc. While I love that kind of stuff, and know that it's a necessity for a new kitchen, opening a box full of wooden spoons and dish towels is kind of boring! Thankfully I remembered Aly & Ash's cute tutorial that took dish towels and made them look like a tiered wedding cake.

You can check out the link above to Aly & Ash if you would like to follow their tutorial. I just winged it. I actually used a 9" round cake pan as the base and wrapped in some ribbon. I used some double stick tape to adhere the ribbon and added the bow. If you want to see how I make the bow, click here. I used some construction paper to anchor the towels and cut them in different heights to make the two different "layers" Once again I didn't use any particular measurements - just eyeballed it and adjusted it till I thought it looked good.

For the third "layer" I folded two towels accordian style. The same way you would make a paper fan. Then I folded them in half and stuffed them into the second layer. Fluff them up a little until they look the way you want them to. Then I just added in the utensils. (I used tongs, whisk, zester, three pastry brushes, wooden spoon)

Thanks Aly & Ash for the tutorial. And congrats to the beautiful bride Jen and her handsome groom Paul!!

Dr Pepper Cupcakes

2010-09-22T11:55:00.000-05:00

Today is my friend Lynette's birthday. She currently lives right around the corner from me, but in a few short weeks she and her family will be moving. While they won't be moving too far, I won't be able to just run over any more, so I really wanted to make sure I made her a little something for her birthday.

Of course my go to treat always seems to be dessert. I was wondering what to make for her and just kept thinking that she loves Dr Pepper. I had heard of a Coke cake, so I wondered if there was perhaps a Dr Pepper treat and I found several recipes. Having never made one before, I read some reviews and pieced together what sounded best. I also decided to make a cupcake instead of a cake. Lynette, like me and a few other of our friends, has been trying to shed a few pounds, and I thought a cupcake would be easier for portion control. Plus cupcakes are just so darn cute!

The recipes I found came with a variety of frostings and toppings: Chocolate frosting, Peanut Butter Frosting, Chopped Peanuts, Chocolate frosting with pecans, Chocolate Ganache with Dr Pepper in it...... I decided to use Ina Garten's Chocolate Buttercream because I love how light it is. You can click on the link for her original recipe. Below is the recipe that I use.

Dr Pepper Cupcakes

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon (scant) salt

1 cup Dr Pepper*

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
8 tablespoons butter, softened, cut up
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line regular size muffin pan with paper liners or spray with Pam. This recipe will yield 24 cupcakes.

Heat the Dr Pepper in a small saucepan over medium. When it starts to bubble, reduce heat to low, add the chocolate chips and stir until melted. Turn off the heat and stir in the butter. Set aside to cool (about 10 minutes)

While the Dr Pepper mixture is cooling, sift together the flour, sugar, dark brown sugar, cocoa powder and baking soda; stir in the salt.**

With an electric mixer, beat the eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla, and almond extract for 2 minutes. At lowest speed, slowly add the Dr Pepper mixture and beat for 1 additional minute. Gradually add the dry ingredients (flour mixture), and beat until smooth by hand or using medium to low speed of mixer.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins. I like to use an ice cream scoop so that all the cupcakes bake evenly and look uniform. Bake for about 20 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool for a few minutes in the pan and then remove them to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely before frosting.

*Some of the reviews I read said you should absolutely NOT use Diet DrPepper because when you heat it up, the artificial sweetener will turn bitter.

**I'm too lazy to sift my flour and white sugar, but I did sift my brown sugar and cocoa powder cause the humidity doesn't agree with that stuff. (Or with my hair either!)

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

6 ozs bittersweet chocolate*

4 ozs semisweet chocolate

1/4 cup egg whites at room temp (2 extra large eggs)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 sticks butter, room temp

1 tsp vanilla extract

Chop the chocolates and place them in a heat-proof bowl set over a pan simmering water. Stir until melted and set aside until cooled to room temperature.

Mix the egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Place the bowl of egg whites over the pan of simmering water and heat the egg whites until they are warm to the touch, about 5 minutes. Return the bowl to the electric mixer and whisk on high speed for 5 minutes, or until the meringue is cool and holds a stiff peak.

Add the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, while beating on medium speed. Scrape down the bowl, add the melted chocolate and vanilla and mix for 1 minute or until the chocolate is completely blended in. If the buttercream seems very soft, allow it to cool, and beat it again.

*If you don't like bittersweet chocolate you could use all semisweet or any combination that you like that equals the weight of chocolate. When my kids tasted it today, they thought it wasn't sweet enough so I ended up adding some powdered sugar and a little milk to sweeten it up a little.

Ina Garten's original recipe calls for a pound and a half of butter!!! I imagine that makes a huge batch of buttercream frosting. I scaled it down to a third and it generously covered 24 cupcakes and there was some leftover. I also omitted the coffee and rum. If you were pairing this with something other than DP you could could add in all kinds of other yummy flavors such as mint or orange. Delish!

Ciara's Creations - Chocolate Cupcakes

2010-09-01T11:02:00.001-05:00

Ciara loves going to Activity Girls! She was especially looking forward to today because her teacher had a pool party planned. The party was actually meant for the girls and their families but there were a few glitches when it came to Ciara's family attending. Mom has a wicked kidney infection - yuck. Simply being upright does not feel great right now. Dad gets home a little late in the evening and worked from home yesterday to help care for the ailing mom, so ducking out of work early just wasn't going to happen today. Thankfully several of our good friends offered to take her along with their own daughters.

I suggested to Ciara we make Brownies. You know, the kind out of a box. Dump in a bowl, eggs, oil, water, stir, dump in a pan, bake. No fuss, and the best part, very little energy expended on my part. But no.....Ciara wanted cupcakes today. She wanted to decorate them for her friends. Because she was disapointed that we weren't going to the party, I decided to go ahead and help her make the cupcakes.

I helped her make little tags, and of course she had to put sprinkles on top!

The cupcakes are cute, but they have nothing on that cute face!

My favorite Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

2010-08-26T10:26:00.003-05:00

My husband Chris was visiting a family from our church about two months ago and asked me if I had anything that he could take along as a treat. I had a variety of cookie dough left over, one of which was Oatmeal Raisin and so I made a sampler platter. (That sounds a lot better than "leftover platter doesn't it?") Anyway, a couple of weeks later, one of the little boys from the family, specifically requested that next time Chris came over, could he please bring some more Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. So just for Curtis here is my Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Recipe.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups oats, uncooked (not instant)
1 1/2 cups raisins

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick spray.

Combine together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a mixer beat the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla extract. Increase speed to high and beat until nice and fluffy.

Mix the flour mixture into the creamed mixture until the flour is no longer visible. (Don't over mix or your cookie will be tough!.) Stir in oats and raisins. This is where your arm will get a little bit of a workout!

To get nice, even round shaped cookies, I like to use an ice cream scoop. (Use a #40 size) If you don't have a good size scoop you can make a ball with two tablespoons of dough, place on cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Place cookies about 2 inches apart.

Bake for 11 to 13 minutes until golden, but still moist beneath cracks on top. Remove from oven; let cookies sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool.

Since it's oats and fruit you can enjoy these completely guilt free! Right?

Khalil Wedding Cookies

2010-08-24T21:44:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to get to attend the wedding reception for these two cuties:

Aren't they just adorable? The groom is from Nepal and met the bride in Utah. The world truly is becoming a smaller place everyday!

I made cookies that were going to be placed on the table as favors. The colors were gold and green so I was a little nervous, because gold doesn't translate well to icing. But I found this amazing edible glitter that I fell in love with. So hours and hours of hand-painting later here's what I came up with:

It only took thee years and three days!!!

2010-07-20T20:10:00.000-05:00

About three and a half years ago, this little fella was born:

A little while later, I bought this fabric:

(Yikes! Ignore those wrinkles in the picture!!)

You see, I was super excited to finally become an aunt. Both my sisters had been aunts for years and I was the only one who wasn't an auntie. My husband had some nieces and nephews but I was just couldn't wait for my sister's son to be born. So when she decided to decorate his room in the Disney Cars Theme I thought, you know, being the cool aunt that I am and all, that I would make him a blankie. Donovan LOVES blankies. So I started to make him one - no big deal, made a ton of them before, I'll just whip one right up. The cars cotton fabric for the front, some blue fleece for the back and I cut some strips to make a cute little gathered ruffle. I pinned the whole thing and decided the ruffle looked too girlie. I kept trying to "boy" it up a little and couldn't decide what to do, so I threw it in the closet and left it there for three years. Phew! Problem solved!!

Fast Forward a couple of years and I decided to clean out said closet. Donovan still loves his blankies and still loves the movie Cars so I decided its time to finish this darn blanket. I added some checkered flag fabric for a border, left off the ruffle completely and swapped the blue fleece backing for red fleece for a little contrast. Then I top stitched it around the checkered flag border.

Since my dad was traveling to my sister's for a visit, it was good motivation to just get it done so I could send it with him. But my sister has had two daughters since then and guess what? They like blankies too! So I couldn't send one for Donovan and not for them. So I made a quick run to Hancock's and found some Tinkerbell and some Disney Princess Material and over the next two days made two more blankets for the girls.

For Princess Meagan:

(This fabric is really cute - the princess dresses have sparkles on them!)

And for sweet little Mackenzie

So it only took my about three years (and three days) but now all three of them have a

blankie from their aunt Clair!

Turkey Pot Pie Sandwich

2010-07-07T23:53:00.001-05:00

I hardly ever watch daytime TV anymore, but I was in the living room vacuuming and one of the kids had left the TV on. Rachel Ray was cooking something up so I stopped to take a peek. She was making Turkey Burgers and it just so happened I had ground turkey in my fridge waiting to be turned into Turkey Burgers that very night!

But she put a little twist on the whole thing, and it looked soo yummy I thought we would give it a try. The original recipe can be found here.

As usual I modified it according to the ingredients in my pantry and the picky eaters in my family.

Open Faced Turkey Pot Pie Sandwiches

2 lbs Jennie O ground turkey

2 tablespoons Dijon Mustard

Lawry's Seasoned Salt

Finely Chopped Parsley

Finely Minced Garlic

Ground Black Pepper

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

1 can chicken broth

1 can mixed vegetables, drained

Mix the first six ingredients together in a large bowl. I didn't measure out my spices - I just eyeballed it. I then separated the mixture into 8 patties. (I cooked four and put four in the freezer for later)

Cook the patties in a large pan - mine took about 5 minutes on each side. When the patties are done cooking, remove them from the pan and then add the butter to the same skillet. Next add in the flour, whisk it together and cook it for about a minute. (Just long enough to cook out the flour taste) Next added in almost all of a small can of chicken broth and bring it to a boil. Last, add in the canned veggies and cook until the veggies are heated through.

I'm sure this would be much tastier with fresh veggies or even frozen ones, but since I didn't have either, I had to go with the canned stuff. We just used toasted hamburger buns instead of the English muffins.

This was a great recipe for our family because our picky kids were able to just take the parts they liked. For instance Riley just had a plain turkey burger on a bun with some cheese and I didn't have to cook a separate meal for him. And it only took about 20 minutes to get dinner on the table!

A Very Belated Birthday Party!

2010-07-07T23:01:00.000-05:00

It seems like things are never calm in our household and when Ciara's birthday rolled around this year, our life's were as hectic as usual. School was coming to an end and baseball and softball was in full swing so we decided to postpone her party till after school finished. We kept waiting for the calm to arrive, so we could have her party but finally decided if we keep waiting the party may never happen.

So today was the day. She wanted to help me make a cake so we made two little cakes that we split and then filled with strawberry and buttercream filling. I covered them with pastel colored fondant and from then on Ciara was the creative director. She even made some of the fondant flowers - not bad at all for her first attempt!!

My fondant was really dry for some reason and I wasn't sure how to fix it, so I had a hard time getting the fondant to lay nice and smooth. You can see all the cracks that developed. Thank goodness Ciara wasn't as nitpicky as I was - she loved the finished product and I guess in this instance her opinion was the one that mattered the most!

Our Hero! - Happy Father's Day 2010

2010-07-07T22:23:00.000-05:00

Due to a family members medical emergency last month, things were ~~kind of~~ really hectic around here! Throughout it all, my dear husband was so supportive. Coming home from work early, working from home, eating fast food, helping more with the kids and just being ready with a hug! It would have been really easy to postpone our Father's Day Celebration to another day but I wanted to make we took at least part of the day to acknowledge how much Chris means to me and the children.

Thankfully a few weeks prior to Father's Day, I stumbled upon a great idea on one of my favorite blogs: http://jordanferney.blogspot.com/

The kids and I assembled some of Chris's favorite snacks, placed them in cello bags and labeled them with cute labels:

(Pardon my poor photography and my kitchen tablecloth in the background!)

I found a cute blue wicker box on clearance at Michaels. It had a cute mini chalkboard on the front. The kids wrote little messages on it. I'm not sure if Chris will use the box again but I'm sure we will find it a home around here somewhere. So after a breakfast in bed of Eggs Benedict, the kids proudly presented their gift basket.

Happy Father's Day to an all around great guy, wonderful husband and fantastic dad.........

Our Hero!!!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Treats

2010-07-07T21:29:00.000-05:00

Almost a month ago now, my stepfather had a stroke. Needless to say, our life's were quickly turned upside down. After a lot of ups and downs, I am thankful to say that he is now slowly but surely recovering. He is currently in Rehab ward and has actually been there for about two weeks, but before that it seems like we never knew where he was going to be from day to day. Started in the ER, to ICU, then to Neurological monitoring and then Rehab.

Every single staff member that we came in contact with were soo kind and caring. We wanted to make just a little something to show them that we appreciated them, so I started making cookies. Because we were all so busy I opted for Chocolate Chip Cookies. Easy to make and everyone loves them! We made bags and bags of cookies. Each bag had two giant cookies in it.

My favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe to use, is the Tollhouse Cookie Recipe. I use an ice cream scoop to scoop the dough and then let it chill in the freezer for a few minutes. This helps the cookies keep their nice round shape.

A special Thank You to all those wonderful nurses, doctors, medical staff, rehab therapists, counselors and anyone else I might have forgot!

And to my mother: You are AMAZING!!

Gift Baskets and Cookie Gifts

2010-06-08T18:06:00.000-05:00

The Young Women at our church put on a small carnival to raise money to go to Girls Camp. They needed donations for Door Prizes and also baked goods that they could sell. I came up with the following.

Green Butterfly tote with a cute mug, picture frame and flowers.

Pink Butterfly tote with a cute mug, picture frame and flowers.

Ice Cream Cone Sugar Cookies - perfect for summer!

Itty-Bitty Cookie Bites!

Flower Sugar Cookes on a stick

Rice Krispy Treats on a stick - cause everything tastes better on a stick right?

Happy Mother's Day to me!

2010-06-08T17:41:00.000-05:00

My family surprised me with this sweet treat for Mothers Day:

Thank you so much to my dear hubby and kids. Love you all!

Ella's Creations

2010-06-08T17:31:00.000-05:00

Ella loves to create her own little projects. She brought home a cute little Mother's Day gift from preschool and it was packaged up in a little bag decorated with foam flowers.

As an added bonus - she decided to decorate my Blackberry cover:

Now, isn't that much better than a plain black cover?

Ciara's Baptism

2010-06-08T17:21:00.003-05:00

Last month, my first born daughter turned 8 years old!! Eight is a special birthday in our Church, because that is when children are baptized.

Ciara was being a little stinker about photos, but we managed to snap a few.

We ordered this beautiful dress from a shop in China.

Funny that the girl always fighting t0 be the center of attention refused to pose for photos!

(I think her nerves were getting the best of her)

I got the idea for this adorable towel on a blog I visited, and just had to make

one as a gift for Ciara.

We had a wonderful day. Thank you to all of our wonderful friends and family who joined us for Ciara's special day.

Teacher Appreciation Week

2010-06-08T16:44:00.001-05:00

Of course as I write this, because I have been slow with the updates, school has already ended for summer.

The week of May 3rd was Teacher Appreciation Week. Several years ago, I found out that nothing was being done for the teachers. Well the Jordan kids were not going to stand for that. So we started baking. First it was just for the actual teacher of their grade. Then of course we had to include the PE teacher, the music teacher, the gym teacher, the librarian, the art teacher, their teachers from previous years, the.....you get the picture. We ended up making bags and bags of cookies! And for some reason, when we do anything like this, my kids think its a tradition and we have to do it every year.

We started with the gifted program that they attend once a day. I think we made 18 bags of cookies. I got to go up there and have lunch with kids while they ran around delivering cookies to all the teachers and staff. We had a blast!

Next was Ella's preschool - a much smaller group to bake for!

Last but not least, was Riley and Ciara's elementary school. I think we made 25 bags for them.

We have been soo blessed to have the most amazing teachers. Each one of them has become like a member of our family and I am so thankful for the love and care they have shown to each of our children. Ms Becky, Ms D, and Ms O - Thanks a million, we love you!

"Thanks A Buzzillion" Bee Cookies

2010-06-07T22:37:00.003-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, we had a meeting for the Teachers of our Primary at Church. (Primary is the Organization for children 18 mos - 11 years old)

We wanted to let our teachers know how much we appreciate them, so among other things we gave them these:

A little something sweet, for the sweet teachers of our ward!

Local Squirrels Celebrate Earth Day!

2010-05-15T20:07:00.001-05:00

I love to celebrate holidays. Mostly my family and I celebrate the mainstream ones, like Valentines Day, Easter, Christmas etc. We've never celebrated holidays such as "National Talk like a Pirate Day" or even Earth Day.

So this past Earth Day started like any other regular day. I packed the kids lunches and got them off to school. Then I sat down at my computer to check my email and take a peek at Facebook. One of my friends wrote a funny post that made me almost pee my pants laughing. I will not mention her name - you know that whole protecting the innocent thing. Anyway.....first a bird was trapped in her fireplace. Then she went down to her basement to get something from the laundry room and was greeted by a squirrel. Yes. A squirrel. Eating chocolate chips that it had retrieved from her food storage. This alone may not strike you as funny, but the local animal control people came, captured the little critter and promptly released it in my friends very own back yard.

I'll give you three guesses as to what appeared in her house the very next day. If you guessed "A Squirrel" you would be ................wrong. Well sorta. After that first squirrel was captured and released, they trapped four more squirrels in their basement!!! Following their story was almost like watching a soap opera. Had they trapped them all? Would more suddenly show up? How were they getting in? Over a period of a week they trapped them all in a live trap and released then in a park a little bit further away then their backyard.

I'm sure this was stressful for my dear friends. I would be stressed out waiting for squirrels to jump out at me at any moment! I almost had a nervous breakdown when I had crickets in my house but I'm sure they will look back at this in a few years and laugh.

About a week or so after their home was squirrel free, I was shopping for some cookie cutters and I came along a particular one I thought would be perfect for my friends.

So I baked up a couple of these:

Ladybug Cake

2010-05-02T21:56:00.001-05:00

My friend Lynette called me and said that her little lady wanted a ladybug cake for her birthday but she couldn't find one at any of our local bakeries.

She said "Feel free to say no." But who could say no to this face?

I have to admit I was a little nervous - I've never made a ladybug cake before, and I'm soo critical of my own work. In the end, I came up with this:

I think the end result was cute. The head was a little big and the fondant was far from perfect, but everyone seemed happy with it. The best thing of all - Carissa, the birthday girl loved it.

Easy Flower Headband

2010-04-19T22:31:00.001-05:00

Spring has sprung in St Louis and my girlie is super excited to wear her spring dresses. Sometimes she wears the craziest clothes. Other times she becomes quite the fashionista and she wants the perfect accessory to go with her clothes.

She wanted a pink flower headband to go with the pink and black dress she planned on wearing for Easter. I've seen this on a lot of different craft blogs made out of all sorts of things.

I'm sure little explanation is needed here but here goes: I used a store bought plain elastic headband (I think it was a Goody one). I took two flowers in different shades of pink and a little pink button and simply sewed them on to the headband. You can buy the flowers at most craft stores or scrapbook supply store. I made a blue and brown one (my favorite color combo) for my younger daughter but she refused to stay still for a picture. On that one I used one large and one small flower and I liked how that one looked better. It seemed to add more contrast. I think I will also try sewing some flowers on the elastic hair ties since my little one sometimes takes the headbands off.

Spring Flower Appreciation Cookies

2010-04-19T22:11:00.001-05:00

The kids and I have been having a great time decorating sugar cookies and delivering them to our family and friends for the holidays. We made green shamrock cookies for St Patricks day. We made sheep, carrots, bunnies and sweet yellow chicks for Easter.

We delivered some cookies to my sweet friend Lynette and her family. Lynette is a super mom to four children, great wife, attentive daughter, active in her church and a wonderful friend. On top of her extremely busy life, she is also in school getting her degree to be a counselor - which means she has to spend many hours counseling students and clients as part of an internship.

She recently finished her internship, and wanted to give her coworkers a little token of appreciation so she asked me if I could make up some cute little flower cookies in some fun spring colors.

I wish I had my sister in law's photography skills............. Alas, I do not.

I packaged them up individually in little cello bags and tied them with some bright ribbon. Lynette made some adorable little stickers to add to the front of the bag.

I also made some bite size little flowers with the scraps of dough.

I thought they were really cute.

So I bagged them up and gave them to Lynette as a little bonus.

Thanks for ordering the cookies from me Lynette!

Extraordinary Buttermilk Biscuits

2010-02-16T12:24:00.002-06:00

I've never had much luck making homemade biscuits so I usually just go with the canned kind. The darn things are soo expensive though - and this particular night we were scraping the bottom of the pantry. Also my friend Elizabeth had made some yummy ones and inspired me to try again.

I found this recipe on the back of the Gold Medal Flour bag.

2 1/2 cups Gold Medal Self Rising Flour*

2 teaspoons sugar

1/2 cup butter or shortening

3/4 to 1 cup buttermilk, milk or whipping cream**

Heat oven to 450 degrees. In medium bowl, stir together flour and sugar. Using pastry blender or fork, cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Stir in cream until dough leaves the side of the bowl. (If dough is dry, stir in 1-2 tbsp additional cream)

On lightly floured surface, knead dough just until smooth. Roll to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut dough with floured 2 1/2 inch round cutter. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. For crusty sides place 1 inch apart, for soft sides place biscuits touching each other. I opted for the soft sides. I also brushed the top with melted butter which the recipe did not call for.

Bake 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Makes about 12 soft and fluffy biscuits. My kids gobbled them up with a little bit of real butter and some honey. Yum - Yum!

Want a sweet biscuit?

Cinnamon Sugar Biscuits: Increase sugar to 1/2 cup, add 1/2 tsp cinnamon to flour mixture. After baking, brush with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

*I actually didn't have enough flour in the bag for this recipe. So I used some all purpose flour - for each cup of all-purpose flour, add 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

**I always have heavy cream in my fridge so this is what I used. Plus I have an aversion to buttermilk. I don't mind eating things with buttermilk in it, as long as I don't see it being poured in there.

Making a Bow out of Wired Ribbon

2009-12-12T22:24:00.000-06:00

My Mother-In-Law always says I am the most awesomest gift wrapper ever. (She better not look under the tree this year!) Anyway, I always feel a lot of pressure to make her present the best wrapped of the bunch. Not that she's the kind of person that would disown you or anything if her present didn't look perfect, but this is a woman who like to unwrap a present. While my clan is ripping the paper as quickly as possible to reveal the present, she gently lifts the tape so that she can preserve the paper. (Maybe she has a giant ball of wrapping paper in her basement cause I've never seen her reuse the paper?!)

Anyway....you can buy some fancy gizmos at the craft store that will help you make a perfect bow, or you can do what I do and just grab any old CD or Book laying around. You can use these bows for gift baskets, wreaths or of course presents which is what I am showing you here today.

I wrapped the present with this really cute foil wrapping paper from Hallmark (which I bought at Sam's Club)

Even though they say you shouldn't be all matchy matchy these days, I found a matching wired ribbon. The dots were just too cute for me to resist and it was a great price so I bought it. I tied the ribbon around the box like so, and secured it with a small piece of tape.

3. I cut a big length of ribbon. I'm going to guess about 4 1/2 feet since it was a little shorter than I am.*Sigh* Than I grabbed the nearest CD. (It happened to be my husband's: The Who) Tightly wrap the ribbon around the CD (or book, piece of cardboard...whatever you have handy)

4. Slide the ribbon off. Keep it even and don't let it unravel.

5. With a sharp pair of scissors cut the corners of. All four of them. ( I know at this point you think you have ruined 4.5 feet or ribbon, but trust me this will work!)

6. Next, and hopefully this will make sense, while keeping the ribbon in a loop, bring all the cut corners to the center.

Now if you want to make a bow for a wreath, a gift basket or such, you can tie the center with a small matching piece of ribbon or a piece of decorator's wire. I am simply just going to attach it to the present I already wrapped.

Now it's time to fluff it all up into a poofy bow. Starting on one side pull out a loop from the bottom then one from the top. (I had five loops per side) Then do the same thing on the other side. The reason I love wired ribbon is because you can really manipulate it to the shape you want.

For the finishing touch, we just need to make the tails of the ribbon look pretty. You can make these as long or as short as you like. Fold the ribbon in half lengthwise:

Cut at a 45 degree angle:

Perfectly wrapped to give to your mother in law to patiently unwrap.

Love ya Mari!

Sorry my pictures aren't so great. I'm not that great a photographer to begin with and I was hiding out in my bedroom while wrapping gifts.

Paula Deen's Pumpkin Pie

2009-12-09T11:20:00.001-06:00

I'm always looking for a different take on Pumpkin Pie. Mainly because I don't like it - something about the texture. I do love the smell of them cooking though! Last year I made Libby's Pumpkin Rolls which are delicious but I didn't have a lot of time to dedicate to baking on this particular day. I had a lot of cream cheese to use up so I really wanted to utilize that somehow. Thanks to google, I found this recipe by Paula Deen.

Paula Deen's Pumpkin Pie

1 8oz package cream cheese at room temperature

2 cups canned pumpkin

1 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg plus 2 egg yolk slightly beaten

1 cup half and half *

1/4 cup melted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place dough into a 9 inch pie pan.** Fit a piece of aluminum foil to cover the inside of the pie shell completely. Fill the shell to the edges with pie weights or dried beans and place it in the oven. Bake for 10 minutes, remove the foil and pie weights and bake for another 10 minutes or until the crust is dried out and beginning to color. ***

For the filling, in a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese with a hand mixer. Add the pumpkin and beat until combined. Add the sugar and salt, and beat until combined. Add the eggs mixed with the yolks, half and half, and melted butter. Beat until combined. Finally, add the vanilla, cinnamon, and ginger if using, and beat until incorporated.

Pour the filling into the warm prepared pie crust and bake for 50 minutes, or until the center is set. Place the pie on a wire rack and cool to room temperature.

This pie was a big hit. The texture ended up being a cross between a pie and a cheesecake. Add some whipped cream on top and you have a delicious dessert!

* I didn't have any half and half but had some heavy whipping cream. So I added 1/2 cup whipping cream and 1/2 cup milk.

** I used a deep die pie plate. If you are using regular pie plates/or shells you can probably make two pies from this recipe.

*** I don't have any pie weights, so I pricked the pie crust with a fork, covered it tightly with the foil, baked for 10 mins, removed the foil and baked for another 10 mins. It worked out fine. Some reviews I read said you don't even need to bake the pie crust ahead of time.

Crock Pot Beef Stew

2009-12-02T15:47:00.001-06:00

It's a yucky day today here in St Louis. It's dark and raining and cold. The kind of day that makes you want to curl up with a blankie and a cup of hot chocolate! But one of my kiddo's has piano lesson's today so we must brave the elements. On days where we are out and about in the evening I like to make a meal in the crockpot. It cuts down on the temptation to just get fast food.

Today is the perfect day for a hot hearty Beef Stew!

Clair's Crockpot Beef Stew

1 pound beef stew meat
1/2 pound baby carrots
1 rib celery*
3 medium potatoes cubed
1 medium onion*
15 ozs beef broth
1 package gravy mix
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 teaspoon Worchesteshire Sauce
salt to taste
pepper to taste

If desired saute stew meat in some Olive Oil. If you are in a hurry you can just throw it in the pot!! Put in the beef broth and gravy mix and whisk together. Throw in all the rest of the ingredients and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

*In my family almost everyone dislikes celery and onion, but I like the flavor they add. I cut them in half so that they are easy to dish out. If you plan on eating them as part of the stew cut them into smaller pieces.

Peach Cobbler

2009-11-30T15:06:00.001-06:00

Every year Uncle Rick graciously hosts Thanksgiving. Said Uncle Rick is my husband's aunts ex-husband. (Follow along please people!) No only does he invite my family of 5 but also includes my mother and stepfather. So when he said he would like something peach for Thanksgiving dessert I was happy to oblige.

What to make though? Obviously fresh peaches are not in season , and I sometimes find the store bought canned stuff to be too sweet, so I decided on a Peach Cobbler. I used some frozen peach slices and tried out this recipe from Paula Deen.

Paula Deen's Peach Cobbler

4 cups peeled, sliced peaches

2 cups sugar, divided

1/2 cup water

8 tablespoons butter

1 1/2 cups self rising flour

1 1/2 cups milk

Optional Ground Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Combine the peaches, 1 cup sugar, and water in a saucepan and mix well. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Put the butter in a 3 quart baking dish and place in the oven to melt.*

Mix remaining 1 cup sugar, flour and milk slowly to prevent clumping. Poor mixture over melted butter. Do not stir. Spoon fruit on top, gently pouring in syrup. Sprinkle top with ground cinnamon if using.** Batter will rise to the top during baking. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes. (Took a full 45 minutes in my oven)

Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream - Yummy!
(Note to self: Can some peaches when they are in season next year!)

*I made this again a few days later with apple instead. I sprayed the baking dish with Pam and reduced the butter in half.

**I also added some freshly ground nutmeg.

Product Shout Out - The Foodsaver

2009-11-13T22:20:00.001-06:00

If you have ever debated getting a Foodsaver? Well, I LOVE mine! I actually got a new one about three months ago. I got it at Sam's Club for under $100. My old one unfortunately died but it has served faithfully for 9 years so I definitely got my money's worth out of it. I have one of the most basic models but even so it is an improvement from my previous one. This one seals hands free (which is the best!!) and does better with sealing bags with moist food.

If you don't store foods for long periods of time, a freezer bag will probably do the trick just fine, but if like me, you find a bag of something at the bottom of the deep freeze, the Foodsaver is a must have. It really does keep things fresh for what seems like forever and there is never any freezer burn.

It really can help you save money by buying in bulk and separating it into smaller portions. A few days ago I bought a bunch of meat at Sam's to replenish Old Mother Hubbards Freezer.

A 5 1/2 pound beef brisket which I divided into two.

Huge Boneless Pork loins were on sale. I bought one that weighed about 7 lbs. I divided this into:1 lb cubed boneless pork
6 boneless chops (approx 1 lb)
1 1b unsliced
2 - 1 lb 15 oz portions (I will use these to roast, or use in the crockpot. I can make one just for our family, or two together if we are feeding guests)

Boneless, Skinless chicken was less than $2 a pound.
2 - 1 lb bags of cubed chicken
2 - 1 lb 5 oz bags of chicken breasts (2 very large chicken breast in each bag)

Ground Beef (90% lean) was $12.27 for 4 1/2 lbs.

3 - 1 lb portions
2 - 8 oz portions (to use in spaghetti)
1 - 10 oz portion (just happened to be what was leftover)

So not only do I save money but I have perfectly portioned bags of food all labeled and ready to go.

Bacon and Chicken Farfalle

2009-11-13T21:27:00.000-06:00

One time when I was sick, my dear friend Lynzee brought us some delicious pasta for dinner. Everyone gobbled it up! I asked her for the recipe and being the good friend that she is, she emailed it right over. It's one of our favorites now.

I did adapt it a litte from the original recipe. Originally it called for the chicken to be cooked in a mesquite marinade. My kids thought the chicken tasted a "little weird." The other thing I did is double the amount of sauce, cause around here a certain someone likes his pasta super saucy! Also just for fun for the kids, I use the Piccolini Farfalle, which is basically just a mini bowtie pasta. You could really use any pasta you have in your pantry.

Chicken and Bacon Farfalle

1 Box Farfalle Pasta
1 pound cubed cooked chicken
1 package bacon

2 tablespoon's flour
4 tablespoon's butter
3 cloves garlic finely minced
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup parmesean cheese
salt
pepper
nutmeg

Cook the bacon - We like it crispy and cut into bite size pieces. You could even use cubed ham if you had leftovers you wanted to use. Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box. While pasta is cooking, prepare the sauce.

Over low heat, melt the butter. Sprinkle in flour and stir continously with a whisk. You want the butter and flour to make a smooth paste. Add in the garlic and then the heavy cream. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat. Add in the parmesean and stir until melted. Add salt and pepper to taste and a dash of nutmeg. Simmer for a few minutes.

At this point, I have to make a plate for my little one. She likes chicken, bacon and pasta but doesn't like them all mixed up together.

Drain the pasta, add in the cooked chicken and the bacon and pour in the sauce. Mix it all up, add a side of garlic bread and dinner is served!

This makes quite a lot of pasta. Four of us all had generous portions, followed by seconds for the hubby and son. There is probably still enough for two people to have lunch tomorrow.

Mini Office Space

2009-11-11T22:05:00.000-06:00

I have an Office in our basement. It has proper desks and office chairs and what not. However, I find myself working upstairs a lot right out of the kitchen. I'm a multi tasker you see, you can often find me monitoring something in the oven while on my laptop and chatting with my three year old while she plays playdough.

I use a small counter space in the kitchen as my mini office. It can often become a catchall and look kinda messy. The wall was also wallpapered. In the rest of the kitchen I had put up tile but the tile didn't seem right for this area.

This is what it looked like:

As you can see it was a mess. Wires running everywhere from routers and modems and phone lines. I am a post it freak and I would just stick them to the wall.

During a quick trip to Michaels Craft Store, I found some Contact Brand Cork Paper. It came on a roll and has a self adhesive backing. Love the self adhesive part and it looked like it would be thin enough for me to cut without much hassle. In fact I was able to cut it with my rotary fabric cutter.

First I meausured and cut the main rectangular shape. Then I measured the cut outs for the phone jack and outlets. Then I simply pulled off the paper backing and pressed it to the wall. An instant cork wall!

Not only does my mini office look so much better, but this is my kind of project. The kind where you get instant gratification. (Did I mention I'm not a patient person?)

Quick and Easy Spanish Rice

2009-11-11T21:40:00.001-06:00

Dinner tonight was tacos. My kids love tacos cause you pretty much get to build your own plate, definitely a bonus when you have three kids that like completely different things to eat!

I often make rice as a side for tacos or fajitas, and I have to admit I usually just make the boxed kind. But I didn't have any on hand today and little time to go to the store so I decided to just make some. It was so quick and easy, and I had all the ingredients right in my pantry so I think I will ditch the boxed stuff from now on.

(Could you just imagine Gordon Ramsey telling me to wipe the sides of that bowl?)

Quick and Easy Spanish Rice

2 tablespoons Oil

3 cloves Minced Garlic

1 1/2 cups White Rice

2 1/2 cups Chicken Broth

8oz can Tomato Sauce

1/2 teaspoon Onion Powder

1/2 teaspoon Chili Powder

1/2 teaspoon Cumin

In a large skillet, lighty saute the garlic. (If you want to use diced onion instead of onion powder, throw in about 1/4 of one here) Add in the rice and saute until light golden brown. (About 5 minutes) Remove from the heat and add in the tomato sauce and the chicken broth as well as your spices. (If I was making this just for adults I would have thrown in some cayenne pepper) Bring to a boil then cover and reduce to a simmer and cook for about 20 mins. Top with some Chopped Parsley, Cilantro or some Shredded Cheese.

A Yummy "Borrowed" Dinner

2009-11-03T19:55:00.000-06:00

I had a plan to go to grocery store today, our larders are practically bare! But for several reasons that didn't happen. We ordered pizza yesterday, and my son had scouts tonight so I really needed to get something on the table. I had some turkey Kielbasa in the fridge and I remembered a recipe I had seen on my frined Jenny's Blog. I remembered it because it had black beans in it which I love.

She calls it 3 Can Creole Dinner and it is something she created sorta by accident. Well her mistake made what could have been a "bowl of cereal for dinner" into a yummy meal.

My version of Jenny's 3 Can Creole Dinner

1 Hillshire Farms Turkey Kielbasa

1 can green beans

1 can stewed tomatoes

1 can black beans

Cajun Seasoning to taste

2 cups white rice

Slice the Kielbasa into bite size pieces and saute in some olive oil. (At this point I removed a little of the kielbasa for my son who is super picky) Add in the canned goods and mix. Add in some Cajun seasoning (I didn't measure, just added and tasted till it was to my liking.) Bring to a boil and then simmer about 15 minutes. I made some white rice in the steamer because it is always cooked to perfection that way. I think this would be good on top of egg noodles too.

This made plenty for our family. My son had plain Kielbasa and Rice, our toddler had plain rice LOL! However, the rest of us (two adults and 1 child that eats like an adult) were very full and we even had leftovers.

Thanks Jenny - Hope you don't mind that I borrowed your recipe!

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

2009-10-29T21:58:00.000-05:00

I was cleaning out pumpkins in preparation of carving and my daughter asked me if we were going to keep the seeds. I first I wasn't going to bother but one of the pumpkins had seeds that were practically sitting on top of the rest of that pumpkin goo so my daughter started collecting them.

Ciara loves doing anything in the kitchen so we washed the seeds and dried them. We put a small amount of olive oil on a cookie sheet and then spread out the seeds on it. Sprinkled them with some fresh ground sea salt and put them into the oven. We baked them for 25 minutes in a 350 degree oven until they were crisp and golden. (Give them a little stir about halfway through.)

A healthy little snack among all those sugary Halloween sweets!

Apple Crisp? Apple Crumble?

2009-10-29T21:36:00.001-05:00

Ever since we canned our apples, my daughter Ciara has been dying to eat them. I even bought some premade crust but for some reason was not in the mood for apple pie. Due to illness in our house this week, dinner was just boring hot dogs so I decided to make a quick yummy dessert. Based on what was in my pantry I decided on Apple Crisp. Or is it Apple Crumble? I'm not sure what the difference is.

Anyhoo.......I heated the oven to 375 degrees and then sprayed the bottom of a small casserole dish with Pam. I poured in some of our homemade Apple Pie Filling. (A 1 pint jar) In a bowl I mixed together:

1/2 cup oats

1/2 cup flour

2/3 cup brown sugar

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Then I cut in:

1/3 cup butter cubed

Topped the pie filling with the oat mixture and baked for 40 minutes. Soo delicious with a scoop of whipped cream. Yum!

This made just enough for our family of five since it is fairly rich. If your family is bigger or if you want seconds or leftovers, I highly recommend doubling this recipe.

Fall Traditions, Apple Picking and Apple Pie Filling!

2009-10-29T21:13:00.003-05:00

Every single year we have lived here, without fail, rain or shine we head out to Grafton to go pick apples and pumpkins at Eckerts. We love the atmosphere of this farm. We love taking a hayride into the apple orchards and out to the pumpkin patch. The kids can pick out any pumpkin they want as long as they can carry it. They love the fresh apple cider and of course funnel cake and kettle corn. Yum!

Our youngest was a little cold when we got there and she didn't seem very enthusiastic. As soon as we got out to the apple orchard and she realized she could pick apples (which she loves to eat) straight off the tree, she got super excited.

So we ended up with a bunch of apples. More than we could possibly eat.

So I decided to make a batch of Apple Pie Filling and can it.

I washed, peeled and sliced all the apples. If you are making a huge batch of this, a peeler and/or corer would probably come in handy, but being part irish and pretty handy with a paring knife I did mine by hand. I like my apple to have a little bite to it and not be mushy so I cut mine in fairly large slices. I also mixed up the two different varieties of apples we had. I really like the end result of tart and sweet mixed together.

If you have never canned before take a visit to the USDA's site. Some recipes may contain outdated or inaccurate information so check them against the guidelines provided on the site.

I used the following recipe:

9 cups water

1 cup cornstarch

4 1/2 cups sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

Peel, core and slice your apples. I'm not sure how many pounds of apples I had. I put the apples into a bowl of water with about a tablespoon of lemon in to keep them from going brown.

In a large pot mix together the water, lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg and bring to a boil. In a separate bowl mix together the cornstarch and 1 cup of water. Slowly add to the syrup mixture while stirring.

Tightly pack your hot sterilized jars with the apple slices. Pour the syrup over the apples. You may want to use a flat utensil to scrape around the jar to get the syrup flowing and eliminate air bubbles. Leave an inch of headspace at the top of the jar. Seal your jars and process in a hot water bath for 20 mins.

I was able to can 12 - 1 pint jars full of pie filling. (I did have some syrup left over) I think quarts would have been more practicle for my family of five but I only had pint jars on hand.

Hmm, Is it time to make pie yet?

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

2009-10-27T21:55:00.001-05:00

It was time for our annual Fall Festival at church where they serve baked potatoes and chili and I needed a sided to go with that. I always try to fix something that my kids like cause they are picky eaters and that way I can guarantee that there is at least one thing they can eat. I thought Mac and Cheese would be a good accompaniment but didn't want to take the boxed kind. So I went online to find some recipes. I love to read comments, but the problem is there are always mixed reveiws. So I then decided to take key components from a different bunch of recipes and try that. I would have to say that the end product resembles Paula Deen's recipe a lot.

4 cups cooked elbow macaroni (2 cups uncooked)

2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

4 oz velveeta cheese (melted)

1/2 cup sour cream

2 eggs

1 cup milk (I used 2%)

1/2 tsp ground mustard

4 tablespoons butter cubed

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Cook macaroni according to box instructions. (Do not overcook) Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease bottom of a 9 x 13 casserole dish. In a large bowl mix together milk, sour cream, beaten eggs, butter, mustard, salt and pepper. When macaroni is cooked, drain, return to pan and stir in shredded cheese right away. (You can save a little of the cheese to put on the top.) Stir in the melted Velveeta cheese. (I cubed the velveeta and then melted it in the microwave for about 1 minute) Add a small amount of the hot macaroni mixture to the milk and egg mixture. Stir and then add a little more. Stir again and then add in all the rest. (Not sure if this is necessary but I did it to temper the eggs mixture so it wouldn't break.) Pour the mixture into the greased pan and bake for about 30 minutes.

My kids loved this. I do not like that famous mac and cheese that comes in a box but I really like this. That being said, this is nothing like that famous boxed mac and cheese. This is a southern style baked Macaroni and Cheese that is creamy but resembles more the consistency of a quiche. (Hmmm quiche, I love quiche!)

You could try this recipe with your favorite cheese or combo of cheeses. You could even add in bacon, cubed ham or chopped broccoli to make it more of a meal instead of a side.

Hours and Hours of Playdough Fun!

2009-10-19T22:07:00.002-05:00

Ever since my two older ones have gone back to school, my little one has been a little bored at home by herself. She is great company and I love to hang out with her but I also work from home, so its nice when she is entertained with something (other than TV!)

On Thursday while she was at preschool in the morning, I made her some homemade playdough. It had been a while since I mixed up a batch so I had to dig through my recipe box. The recipe is super easy and I made three batches in about 15 minutes.

1 cup flour

1/4 cup salt

2 tablespoons cream of tartar

1 pkg unsweetened kool-aid

1 cup water

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

In a medium size saucepan mix all the ingredients together and stir over medium heat. Keep stirring for a few minutes until the mixture forms a dough. (Your arm will get a little workout here!) When the dough balls up and separates from the sides of the pan its done. Turn it out onto a heat safe surface and when it is cool enough to handle knead until nice and soft.

I made three batches and then I ran out of cream of tartar :(. Each batch makes slightly over a pound of playdough. I used Orange, Grape and Cherry KoolAid. Not only do you get the great color but the playdough smells great too!

We got out the cookie cutters and my little one literally played from lunch until dinner. After dinner she and her older sister played until bedtime. Hours and Hours of fun!

I love so many things about this playdough:

All the ingredients are already in my pantry.
It smells great!
It's softer than store bought playdough therefore easier to roll out, especially for little ones.

When playtime is over, simply store it in an airtight container!

About me

2009-10-16T08:32:00.003-05:00

My name is Clair and I have been married to my sweetheart Chris for 15 years! We have three wonderful children: Our son Riley who is 11, and two daughters, Ciara 8 and Ella 4. I consider myself a stay at home mom because I am lucky enough to get to work part time from home.

I love to do anything creative, whether it be cooking, sewing or scrapbooking. I really enjoy blog hopping and get tons of inspiration from those of you that are truly crafty.

Most of all I love creating things that make my family happy and spending time at home with my husband and my favorite creations: my kids!