Hello Again

This week I did something a little crazy.  Even though I have about 3 bushels of apples in my house right now, and tomatoes to be made into salsa, I decided to craft!

I love Pinterest, and I have been seeing so many fun projects that are a combination of candlesticks and mason jars to make cute containers, or candle sticks and platters to make cake stands that I decided it was time to do a little experimenting.  I saw someone once use glass candle holders to make the cutest pumpkins.  She used vinyl for the face, and then filled the containers with orange marbles.  So cute!  Well, what can I say?  I like food a lot more than I like marbles, so I decided to try a variation of that with cute Halloween candy.  And then I thought, why not put the glass bowls on top of some fun candlesticks?  Here's what I came up with:

What do you think?  I'm really happy with how these turned out.  Of coarse, my little pumpkin would look better if I had been able to find the candy corn M & M's like I wanted, but that's another story.  All of the supplies were purchased at Hobby Lobby.  To make them you will need:

• Large glass bowl (from the floral department)

• Small glass bowl (this one was in the candle department)

• Large glass candlestick

• Small glass candlestick

• Lid - also from the candle department (normally used as a base for a pillar candle).  It's not a really secure fit, but it works

• Black tulle ribbon

• Super incredibly strong glue that is intended for gluing glass.  There are a number of adhesives that would probably do the job.  I picked one called Omni-Stick because it dries clear and becomes dishwasher safe.  

• Black vinyl cut into jack-o-lantern shapes.  I used some Snapdragon Snippets designs from the Silhouette online store

 And here's where they are on display in my kitchen.

And here's what is below:

I have about 3 bushels of apples in my kitchen right now (this is not all of them).  So far I have made 32 quarts of applesauce, 7 quarts of apple pie filling, and dried a lot of apples too.  Today I thought I would experiment with my juicer:

So we'll see how that turns out.  The rest of the apples are going to be turned into cider.  A friend in our neighborhood has a cider press and has been kind enough to let us use it.  I'll take pictures and post later on that.  Oh, and all of this is coming from two apple trees.  Ya, just two.  It's been a good year for apples.

Merry Christmas to all!

I have been busy for the past three days playing Betty Crocker!  I love to bake and make candy and that is one of my favorite things about this time of year.  This year I made:  peanut brittle, english toffee, chewy molasses spice cookies, shortbread, butterscotch confetti, noodle stacks, macaroons, yum yums, and caramels.  Phew!  Thankfully my daughters were a really big help to me this year.  Usually by the time I am done with all the baking I couldn't care less about how they're packaged up, but my Cricut came to the rescue!  It's just so easy to make something cute, so how could I resist?  I did the cutting, my daughter did the assembling and voila!

Cricut Cartridge:  Wild Card
Paper:  American Crafts MerryMint
Ribbon:  American Crafts

Merry Christmas!

Marshmallows!

Making marshmallows was so much fun!  And they are SOOOO yummy!  And they were much easier to make than I thought they would be.  You do need to have a good mixer - I have a Kitchenaid.  I remembered seeing these made on an episode of Good Eats on the Food Network, so if you would like to get the recipe you can find it here, courtesy Alton Brown.

Gourmet Goodies

It seems that as soon as school is out my children decide it's time to set up a lemonade or Kool-Aid stand.  It's one of those things that I remember doing as a child, and now I find myself wondering why my parents let me!  The way my mind works is, if you want to earn some money you need to be selling something that people will actually want to buy.  So once in a while, during a moment of insanity, I agree to make something that my children can sell to earn some extra money.  It's actually a good way to teach the kids a little economics with the cost of supplies, the time it takes to make things, how much to charge, etc.  With Father's Day coming up on Sunday, I naturally thought:  food.  So this is what we have made so far:  homemade caramel and chocolate dipped pretzel rods, and chocolate dipped rice krispies.  We're going to wrap them up in cellophane, complete with ribbon, and of coarse a cute tag!  What's next?  Homemade marshmallows.  I've never made those before, so stay tuned!

Homemade pizza....MMMMMM

I have to give a little shout out to a great recipe that I just found.  There is a frequent scenario at my home when it comes to meal preparation.  Often I have something in mind that I want to make, and I have some ingredients that I need to use up and I have to find a way to make them work together.  Solution - Allrecipes.com.  As I have said before, this is my favorite resource for recipes.  I love to use their ingredient search when I have something that I need to use up, or if I need to find a new way to use a certain combination of ingredients.

Last night I wanted to make homemade pizza, but I didn't want to make just our usual hawaiian, and I had some chicken that I needed to use.  I'm not a fan of the barbecue chicken pizzas that seem to be all the rage these days, so I went to Allrecipes.com to the ingredient search and typed in "chicken" in the wanted ingredients section, and used "pizza" as a keyword.  I found the most fabulous recipe for Chicken Pesto Pizza.  I made pizza dough in my bread maker (be sure to make extra for cheesy breadsticks!) and used my favorite pesto mix by Simply Organic.  I didn't have any artichoke hearts (although that would have been divine) and substituted mozzarella & a little parmesan for the fontina.  I topped with a little chopped tomato and voila!  It was really yummy.  Even my husband and kids who aren't pesto fans liked it.  This one is definitely a keeper.

You want me to eat what???

Food can elicit some pretty strong emotions in people, and my family is no exception.  When my husband and I got married I found that he had pretty low expectations when it came to meals.  My mother-in-law, bless her heart, doesn't like to cook and so my husband was raised on a lot of fast food and good old fashioned red meat and potatoes.  Me, on the other hand, I was raised on vegetables, vitamins, liver, whole grains, and anything else that my mother thought was good for us.  As far as what I prepare for my family, I think I would say "practicality" rules.  I have never had a large grocery budget, so I tend to cook with very little meat and I try to use the items that I store in my food storage:  legumes, grains, powdered milk, etc.  With all due modesty, I have to say that I'm a pretty good cook.  Although, anytime I try a new recipe I have to ask my family if it's a "keeper", especially if it involves food storage items.  I am happy to report that my children, for the most part, are willing to eat just about anything because they have been exposed to a large variety of foods from many different ethnicities.  My husband, on the other hand, thinks that I am trying to kill him anytime I feed him legumes or whole grains.  Still working on that...

I am always looking for inexpensive meal ideas, and in particular, ways to make my food storage items more palitable.   That is why I was really excited when I found this recipe for Curried Lentils and Rice at one of my favorite food storage resource blogs Safely Gathered In.  It tastes good, really good.  I liked it, my children liked it - even my picky 2 year old.  My husband, well, he said that it tasted good but had that health food quality about it.  Good enough for me!  Lentils are cheap, full of protein, and easy to prepare because they take far less time to cook than most other legumes.  This recipe is a keeper!

While I am on the topic of food storage, be sure to check out the new button I have posted for the Preparedness Pantry blog.  In addition to being a great resource for information and great products, they have a fabulous giveaway going on right now for a dairy combo, with a retail value of $175.70.  Check it out!

Breakfast made simple

I have a confession to make - I don't make breakfast for my family.  We are very much a cold cereal bunch because, well, I like cereal, and it's better for you (if it's not the sugary kind) than a lot of the alternatives.  The problem is, cereal can be expensive (unless you never spend more than $1 a box, but we'll leave that for another discussion) and I have been trying to find ways of incorporating food storage type foods more in our every day diet.

So what do you do when you're trying to use the oats and wheat in your food storage and you don't particularly like getting up at the crack of dawn to prepare breakfast for your family?

Answer:

Prepare breakfast the night before!

I have found the most yummy recipe for crockpot oatmeal at one of my favorite food storage websites:

http://safelygatheredin.blogspot.com

This makes a really big batch of oatmeal, so if you don't need that much you can either refrigerate leftovers and just reheat with some milk later, or you can try a slightly modified, scaled down version that I use.  Personally, I didn't see the point of leaving the crockpot on all night since I have a handy dandy timer that I could program and plug the crockpot into.  Here's my version:

1 1/2 cups steel cut oats (you can't use regular or instant because they cook too fast and you would have cement in the morning)
4 cups water
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup powdered milk (and they'll never know it's in there)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp honey
1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped

To be added in the morning:
Brown sugar to taste
Toasted, chopped almonds

Put all ingredients into a 3-4 quart crockpot set on Low, and set your timer to be on for 3 hours (mine goes on at 4 am and off at 7 am).  In the morning, stir, and sprinkle with brown sugar and toasted almonds.  YUM!  Serves 5-6.  Oh, and if you want an extra easy clean up, butter the crockpot lightly before adding all the ingredients.  Butter makes it better, right?

If you don't have a timer, add 1/2 to 1 cup of extra water and turn your crockpot on to low at bedtime.

I have tried this with cracked wheat too, although I'm still perfecting that recipe.

Cauliflower Soup

Continuing on with soup week, I thought it was high time I did something with the organic cauliflower my mom left at my house (don't all moms leave cauliflower in their wake?). So I made this delicious recipe from Pioneer Woman. Can I tell you how much I love Pioneer Woman? I want to be her. But since I can't, I can at least make her soup--and it's delish.

Let me give credit: this is her picture because 1) she takes amazing pictures and 2) my soup is just in a big stock pot, not a cute tureen. I don't even own a tureen. But I should, because I love soup and I make it a lot. I did alter it slightly, I used skim milk instead of whole, but cream instead of half and half. Just depended on what I had in the house. I also used half the butter and added potatoes to the mix and garnished with cheese. And I stuck the stick blender in it for a second or two to make it even MORE creamy (plus it's great at disguising vegetables!). I think it would also be good with some bacon on top. Isn't everything better with bacon?

My kids each ate 2 bowls. I won't say how many I had. Serve this up with crusty bread and a dark green salad and you've got a family favorite. Thanks Pioneer Woman!

Mexican Chicken Soup

I love soup. I love Fall. I love soup in the Fall. So I'm going to be posting some of my all-time favorite warm-your-belly great for fall soup recipes. But actually they are good anytime of year!

Mexican Chicken Soup

via ward cookbook

Carisa Hansen

Taste of Home

1.5 lbs cut up chicken (or 1 can chicken breast from your food storage)

1/2 cup chopped onion (or substitute dried)

1-2 tsp. minced garlic

3T butter or olive oil

2 chicken bouillon cubes

1 c. boiling water

1/2 - 1tsp. cumin (I like a lot)

2 c. half and half (or evaporated milk)

2 c. shredded cheese (Monterrey jack is best, but I've also used Velveeta, low fat cheese, or whatever I have in the fridge)

1 can creamed corn

1 can diced green chilies, undrained

Brown chicken, onion and garlic in butter. Dissolve bouillon in water. Add to chicken. Add cumin and bring to boil, then simmer 5 minutes. Add milk and the rest of ingredients and simmer til cheese melts through.

This is great served with chips, or over rice, or with a can of black beans added. Yum!

photo credit: flickr

My continuing love of all things cupcake

This is a recipe file that I made as a wedding gift.  It was made using a 4 x 6 chipboard calendar from Maya Road.  Chipboard is basically a fancy name for (non-corrugated) cardboard and it certainly isn't anything new, but I haven't really appreciated all the fun stuff you could do with it until now.  And Maya Road has way more than just chipboard - lots of great products and ideas.  Check them out!

Cupcakes are cool!

Have you noticed that cupcakes are all the rage these days?  Aside from the tempting treats available at your local bakery, or yummy recipes that are available, you see cupcakes everywhere - clothes, earrings, and of coarse at the craft store.  My oldest daughter craves them on a regular basis and will say, "I feel like a big, frosted cupcake!"  And I don't blame her.  Who can resist the perfect little morsel of fluffy cake topped with frosting?

I went to a book release party recently for the wife of one of my husband's colleagues:  101 Gourmet Cupcakes in 10 Minutes, by Wendy Paul.  Wendy has all kinds of fun and easy recipes for yummy cupcakes, all made using cake mixes!  Wendy also has a great blog that you can visit here.  The party guests were invited to create a cupcake recipe of their own, and the kids and I had all kinds of fun coming up with cool cupcake recipes.  I went with a Toasted Almond Fudge cupcake, which was a chocolate fudge cupcake filled chocolate ganache, and frosted with almond buttercream and topped with toffee almonds and chocolate shavings.

In the spirit of all things cupcake, I created this card.

Stamp:  Hero Arts
Cardstock:  Bazzill and Stampin' Up!
Embossing folder:  Cuttlebug
Dies:  Quickutz
Ribbon:  Michaels
Brads:  Doodlebug Designs
Markers:  Copic Ciao
Glitter:  Stampin' Up!

Some more fall for y'all

Back to Andrea's turn...

Autumn to me means so many things:  beautiful colors, the smell of the falling leaves, a crisp bite in the air, harvest time, pumpkins, warm sweaters, hay rides, apples.  There must be something magical in the air when your child comes in and asks if they can rake the leaves.

I love the community that I live in because I am surrounded by apple orchards and have lots of varieties of fresh apples right at my fingertips.  What I love, maybe even more, is apple cider.  Last week we made our first trip of the season to Farnsworth Farms and bought 2 gallons of unpasteurized apple cider.  YUM!  And since it's unpasteurized you have to drink it quickly because you wouldn't want all that fresh goodness getting too happy and fermenting.  This cider mill was a great find thanks to one of my favorite housemuffin websites:

• http://www.pickyourown.org/

I found this website last year when I was looking for local growers that I could purchase produce from and have since used it for so many different things.  This is a great resource for everything from crop calendars and picking, to recipes and information on preserving techniques.  If you click on your state you can find a list of local growers and what they sell.  They even have links for pumpkin patches, corn mazes, and (dare I say) Christmas tree farms and lots.  Check it out!

What's for dinner?

I am sitting here at the computer printing a recipe for Sweet and Sour Chicken that is a family favorite because I seem to have misplaced my copy.  I just have to give a little shout-out for my favorite source for recipes these days:  Allrecipes.com.  I just can't say enough good about this website, but here are a few of my favorite features:

• The recipes are rated, so you don't have to worry about using a dud.  And you can actually go through and read the reviews written by other cooks so you can get ideas on how to improve the recipe, or a pitfall to avoid.  You can also rate the recipes too!
• The ingredient search:  I LOVE THIS!  I have literally plugged in ingredients that I needed to use up and seen what kinds of recipes came up.  Sometimes I know what kind of recipe I am looking for and just need to find one that has a certain ingredient, and maybe one that doesn't have another.  You can search for ingredients that you want to include and exclude.  This would be a great feature to use if you have food allergies.
• Nutritional information:  A lot of the recipes also have nutritional information provided.  This is fabulous for people who are counting their calories, or needing to watch their sodium intake.

If you join Allrecipes you can have your own online recipe box where you can save your favorites too.  Check it out!