Spinach Kiwi Salad

In the summer I love to make strawberry spinach salad. I wanted to make this salad and checked out the strawberries at the store the other day, the price was sky high and they didn’t even look good. I decided it was time to mix things up.

Spinach Kiwi Salad

Bag of spinach
2 kiwis sliced
1 orange sliced
¼ cup canola oil
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
¼ cup fresh orange juice


Place spinach in bowl. Make dressing by whisking together oil, sugar and juices. After well combined add dressing to spinach and toss in kiwis and orange slices.

Delish, Enjoy!

Chocolate Lovers Trifle Delight

My husband is a lover of chocolate. He loves it more than even me, and I am rather fond of the substance (unless I am pregnant, then I loath the stuff and it makes me sicker than a dog).

The hubs birthday was last week, Christmas Eve to be exact. We celebrated by going to Chuck E. Cheese and let the cousins run wild, we had a great time.

After our pizza lunch we indulged in this beauty!

Super rich and hit the sweet spot for sure. When else would one indulge in soo much chocolate??? Birthday + Christmas = perfect.



Here is the crew singing the Happy Birthday Song!

 Of coarse you can add your favorite goodies, but this is what I whipped up…

Chocolate Lovers Trifle Delight


1 9x13 pan of your favorite prepared brownies
1 cup M&M’s
1 Snickers bar chopped
4 snack size Reeses Peanut Butter Cups chopped
5 Cashew Sandies Cookies chopped
1 tub of chocolate Cool Whip


I prepared my brownies and used parchment paper so I could easily remove them and slice them on the cutting board. I used a pizza cutter, which did better than my knife attempt and chopped the brownies into 1” squares.


Arrange a layer of brownies in a trifle dish or glass bowl, then add a layer of Cool Whip. Then add the following layers: cookie crumbs, brownie, Cool Whip, brownie, Cool Whip and top off with candies and a dab of Cool Whip and a brownie square.


Wowsers was it sweet and rich, but perfect for my chocolate lover!!

Happy Birthday Hubs!

Candy Cane Dipped Chocolate Chip Cookies

I found this recipe and I have wanted to try it out: Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies.
I am swearing off sugar and all goodies of the sweet nature for the month of January so I had to get these made before then. They are as yummy as the reviewers said! I had some left over crushed candy cane on my counter top from the holidays so I decided to dip the dough in the candy cane. Let me tell you it didn’t disappoint!

So here you are the recipe with my slight alterations:

Candy Cane Dipped Chocolate Chip Cookies


1 cup (2 sticks) butter softened
¾ cup brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
1 small package Instant vanilla pudding mix
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 ¼ cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup crushed candy canes


Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat the butter, sugars, pudding mix, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl. Beat until creamy and fluffy. Then slowly mix in flour and baking soda. Stir in chocolate chips. Scoop the cookie dough and dip the tops of the dough in the crushed candy cane. Make sure you do just the tops or you may have a difficult time removing them from the pan after baking! Bake for 13 minutes and allow to cool before chowing down.

Yum, yum. Happy New Yearing!

Ham and Spinach Farfalle

I found this recipe via pinterest and adapted it from here.

As I do with most of my cooking, I made several changes based on what I had in the house. Turned out delicious and all who tasted, approved.  I used left over Christmas ham (it was delish!)

Ham and Spinach Farfalle (bow tie pasta)


1 box of farfalle pasta (bow tie)
Olive oil spray
½ small onion diced
2 cloves diced garlic
1 cup diced ham
1 cup heavy cream
3.5 oz gouda cheese
1/8 tsp nutmeg
4 cups fresh spinach leaves


Cook pasta in a large saucepan or lightly salted boiling water until al dente. Drain. Meanwhile, spray a large non-stick frying pan with oil. Heat over medium-high heat sauté onion and garlic until golden. Add the ham and cream. Reduce heat and cook for 5 minutes until heated through, then add cheese, nutmeg and spinach. Toss well until well combined and allow spinach to wilt ever so slightly. And Enjoy!

Grandpa Crafts

My dad is in town for the holidays from Arizona. He is staying at my sisters house and they are doing a secret Santa gift exchange. The gifts have to be home made. He asked me if I had any craft ideas he could do for his secret santa. Why yes, I do!

I got him crafting right away. He was proud of his finished project. I can’t show you what he made, because it is a Christmas secret.

I just had to document the moment, because it isn’t often that I get to spend time with a crafting grandpa!

Merry Christmas!

Thrifty DIY Christmas Gift: Metal Decorative Chalkboard Tutorial

Another simple quick gift!

Supplies:

-metal tray or a plate

-chalk board spray paint

-painters tape

-1” ribbon

-hot glue gun and glue sticks

-chalk

Tape off your edges and cover with newspaper any surface you don’t want dirty.  Find a well ventilated area and evenly spray the future writing surface.  Allow to dry and then apply a second layer of chalk board paint.

Since it is so cold in my garage I was finding it was taking a really long time for the paint to dry, so I used my hair dryer to speed up the process.

After both coats have dried, attach a ribbon to the back with hot glue so the chalkboard can be displayed on the wall.  Or use a decorative stand as I have.

Before you use the chalkboard you will have to “condition” the board by using a piece of chalk and rubbing it over the whole surface.

If you have messy edges that need cleaning up use your finger nail or a handy dandy Magic Eraser to rub off the excess.

I have used this little board so much since I have made it.  It has been a great little message board in our home.

Happy Gifting.  Merry Christmas!

Peppermint Chex Mix

I made this to deliver to neighbors. All I can say is YUM!!! I adapted this recipe from a recipe I found on A Thrifty Mom.com


Peppermint Chex Mix


14 cups of Chex (I used Corn Chex and a bit of Crispix)
1 cup raw sunflower seeds
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
¾ cup butter
1 cup crushed candy cane
Sprinkles to add a little festivity


In a large bowl combine cereal, sunflower seeds and coconut, set aside. Boil sugar, corn syrup and butter for 2 minutes (if you boil too long it will be hard candy rather a wonderful chewy mixture.) ````` Take off the stove and add the candy cane. Pour hot mixture over the cereal mixture and gently stir. Pour mixture on waxed paper to cool and add sprinkles. And enjoy!!

Easy Budget Friendly Christmas Gifts: Magnetic Nativity

This is a simple project you could do with your kids.


Supplies:
-Magnetic sheets (I found these at most craft stores)
-Modge podge
-Nativity stickers (I had a hard time finding them initially. I ended up buying them off of Oriental Trading)

This crafty gift is pretty much self explanatory. Take your stickers place them closely together on the magnetic sheet and then before you cut them out, modge podge over the tops of the stickers to seal them. After the modge podge dries cut them out and enjoy.

There are even small metal trays that can be found at the dollar store. That is what I purchased to accompany my nativity magnets.

My two year old has had hours of joy playing with and arranging her little nativity.

Easy, budget friendly and Fun!!

Happy Gifting! Merry Christmas!

Christmas Miracles

A good part of this year, my kitchen was in shambles. Over the summer we lived with out a dishwasher and oven. On the same day, way back in May, my dishwasher started doing funky things and quit working and my oven blew up, literally. I saw it with my own eyes as I as attempting to cook dinner. (Read about my bad day here.)


When our fridge quit on us in August, I decided it was time to pull our kitchen back together. We scrimped and bought a new dishwasher. For the past two years we have been storing a fridge (and not using it) in our garage. We knew the friend we were storing the fridge for could use the money so we purchased her fridge and hauled it into our house so it could be put back into commission. Lastly we called out a repair man to fix our fried oven.


I found the guy off Craigslist. He was expanding his business and setting up a new shop. He offered to fix our oven free of charge in trade for our broken fridge. My first thought was, “Are you kidding me, heck yeah!” It turns out he could repair our fried board and use this fridge to test other GE boards when he is repairing them. (By the way, GE’s tend to need a lot of repairs according to this man). He had a spare board for the oven that he was willing to replace for us. So he got a broken fridge he could fix and I got a fixed oven for no charge…. I had already replaced the blown element, so it wasn’t exactly no charge that cost me $70. When the element blew, my whole control board blew too. I am lucky there wasn’t a big fire!


A couple weeks ago the hubster was craving some brownies and we decided to throw some in the oven. The timer went off and it was time to indulge in fudgy goodness. He went to take them out and asked me how long they had been in. I told him they were in for the full 22 minutes. He called me over to take a look and investigate our uncooked brownies. I knew we were in for some trouble. When I opened the oven it was warm, but not hot like it should be.


My first feelings were anger, “Why do I have to have a broken oven again!! This one is only three years old and I have already repaired it once.” My second thought was, maybe when I was cleaning it out the day before I disconnected the element when wiping out the bottom of the oven, it did seem a little loose. I took out the uncooked brownies and decided to just turn off the oven and not think about it for a couple of days. Christmas is approaching and I was looking forward to doing some holiday baking. I just couldn’t think about getting the oven fixed again. The hubs even mentioned maybe we should splurge (again) and get a new oven. For the night I just had to walk away from the situation.


A couple days later I decided to face my broken oven. I had high hopes that if I just tried turning it on, it would work again. I was hoping for a Christmas miracle. I pushed the magical buttons and waited…. After lots of clicking and peeking in to check if it was working I soon came to realize that my Christmas miracle wasn’t going to happen, well not going to happen with out a little bit of “works”. Faith with out works is dead, right? I had faith, but I wasn’t doing anything enough for my miracle to come through.


The hubs turned off the power to the oven, then I pulled the oven from its cubby and got to work. Unscrewing screw after screw until I got to the back of the oven where all of the wires are. Alleluia, one of the element wires had come loose. I hoped that this was my Christmas miracle and I would be able to re-connect the wires and we would be on our way.


Before I knew it was back in business. Our oven wasn’t broken, just poorly built, I should have cramped the wires down tightly so they don’t come undone again. A wonderful simple fix.


I sometimes wonder if the Lord throws curve balls just so we will humble ourselves and ask for help. As silly as a broken oven is, I was about to call quits on all cooking for a while. I didn’t really want to go back to cooking in my toaster oven. I am grateful for my little Christmas miracle as insignificant as it might be.


Merry Christmas and keep believing in miracles, because they will keep happening if you believe.

Un-decorating The Christmas Tree

Christmas is on its way and it has been fun to get things ready with the kids. Today I learned that Lil’Bean is able to climb up on to the chair in the living room. I have attempted to keep him out of the living room. I have two gates and both have failed to keeps the kids away from the tree. One broke, the other won’t stay up.

This is what I found this morning. My climbing one year old and my acrobatic two year old. Lil’Bean loves to take apart the tree. Lil’Miss loves to re-decorate the tree, which is fine. My rule is if I find it on the floor it goes higher up on the tree.

We have only had one fatality so far this year. Poor Daffy.


Happy Holidaying!

PS—Yes my daughter is a swimsuit in the middle of December, she is an independent soul, with her own ideas of fashion. Heaven help me!

Easy, Budget Friendly Christmas Gifts: DIY Lip Gloss

Mandrine Orange Lip Gloss

Pinterest, Pinterest, oh my love. I have had so much fun browsing Pinterest. It actually has got me motivated to try more and more things. I cook new things more often, I craft and sew more and I am pretty sure I can give Pinterest the credit for my re-found love of crafting.


Here is a link to my Pinterest page.
Through Pinterest I stumbled across this awesome idea of making your own lip gloss click here.


I wanted to give it a try myself. I found the ideas on this blog very helpful, and the comments even more helpful.


Here is a photo journey of my lip gloss experience.
Gather up the supplies:

-Petroleum Jelly
-Koolaid: I tried out Strawberry Kiwi (cause that is what I had)
-blush or eyeshadow for color and sparkle
-your favorite essential oil for scent
-small containers for your glossy gift (I also had these on hand)
-small syringe or dropper to fill containers
-double boiler (my favorite method: a glass bowl and pot)

Prepare your color by crushing your eye shadow/blush. I ended up trying both. The eye shadow is the light colored gloss and the more pink batch is the blush. You don’t need a lot of powder to get a nice tint. Color options are limitless!

Get your double boiler fired up at around med-high heat. Take caution because you are working with oil here!!! Keep kiddos away just in case there is splattering. Or other craziness that might occur.


Constantly stir the jelly until it turns to liquid. Once liquefied, turn off the heat and add your goodies: blush/eye shadow, scented oil and or Kool-Aid. Stir and stir until completely combined.

I read on the comments from the link above and many people said the Kool-Aid wasn’t dissolving for them. I experienced the same thing, thus my adding the essential oil. Next time I will go with out the Kool-Aid and just use the oil. Most of my Kool-Aid settled at the bottom of the dish and I tried not to include it in the small containers.

Prepare all your containers by taking off their lids and begin to fill your mini glosses. I used a medicine syringe that you can purchase from a pharmacy. I happen to have a bunch left over from my son’s NICU experience.

Very carefully use the syringe to suck up the gloss and place into your containers. Caution!!! Even though you are working with a lubricant, I found my syringe to stick some, creating a splattery mess. As it cools down things will firm up so work quickly.

Allow to cool and cap the gloss! An awesome easy gift!! I made this little card to go with them and will be adding a small bag of Hershey Kisses to accompany my gloss.

Many people asked on the other blog where she got her containers. I happen to use to work for The Body Shop and had purchased my containers through their company many years ago. She purchased her containers on Ebay and it is said that some craft stores sell small containers that may work. You could always check out the travel sections for small pill containers, I think those might work as well.


What kind of crafts are you making and giving this Christmas?


Happy Gifting! Merry Christmas

PS-- and for those of you who are anti-petroleum jelly, sorry. Maybe you can try coconut oil. As crazy as it is, when I am having super chapped lips, petroleum jelly is the one thing that will help heal them quick.

Peanut Clusters

The holiday season is in full swing. My tree is up and the Nativity is out. It also means time to make goodies for goodie plates.



I have had a package of Hershey Bars around for far too long and it I decided to put them to good use.
Here is a simple, simple way to make peanut clusters!
Two ingredients, that is it!

 Peanut Clusters
(Correction 1 1/2 C. Roasted Peanuts)
½ C. Roasted Peanuts
6 Hershey’s Bars


Break up the candy bars and place them in a double boiler (or a glass/metal bowl and pot like I use) over med-high heat. Heat chocolate through until melted. Turn off heat and add nuts.


Drop by the spoonful onto waxed paper and allow to cool. I placed them in the freezer to speed up the process. Enjoy! Makes aprox. 2 dozen clusters.


 
Happy Goody Making!!