Fall yummies and their packages

I am getting my easy goody recipes together for a little event I am planning next month. (Sunday Sept 23rd to be exact--so mark your calenders!)  I have printed these recipes from my Pinterest board  (yummy recipes to try).  Cinnamon sugar pretzels, Cinnamon Churro Chex, and Homemade payday bars.  I will also make butter cookies so I can try out my new Stampin' Up cookie stamps.
Then of course, I need to make some creative packaging to show my guests!
Here is a sneak peak of my recycled packing paper cookie or candy bag.  The brown paper you see in the photo above is recycled from a package I received at work.  I got the idea from Monika's blog. 
I love ideas that can be modified for any occasion or holiday! This little bag is one of those!
I started with the square scallop bigz die for this easy project! So simple! 

Have a wonderful week!

Be inspired to create!

Tina

I actually do try some of my Pinterest recipes :)

Hi there! Happy Saturday!  I hope you have had a good week!
I saw one of those funny e-cards the other day and it made me laugh hysterically!
I am going to clean it up a little bit, but it goes like this:
A photo of a little girl eating a sandwich and it reads "My mom has 237 recipes pinned in Pinterest, so why am I eating a stupid bologna sandwich!".
I have 182 recipes pinned.  However, thus far I have tried maybe 5 to 10. Not bad, because some of them are seasonal, like Christmas candy and what not.
And not that the little e-card shamed me into it,  I already had a couple of recipes I wanted to try for dinner last week. (I swear that's the truth)
I am sharing with you the one that was a hit with my husband and a picky teenager. (1 out of 3 teenagers isn't bad, my two teenage boys wouldn't even look at it!)
I tried the Taco Casserole and it was very easy and very tasty!
If you want the recipe go here and give it a try! 

Have a wonderful weekend!
Be inspired to create!
Tina

I love Saturdays!!!!

Saturday 7/30 checklist

1. Cinnamon tea with honey! check

2. Make Sugar Donut Muffins (recipe found at Pintrest). check

3. Go for a 45 minute bike ride. check

4. Get a 1 hr massage and sugar scrub with a 50% off Groupon. check

1. Started my Saturday morning with delicious Mexican Cinnamon tea and honey!! I love this stuff just as much as my Starbucks Skinny Vanilla latte and it is less expensive! I found the tea at Rancho San Miguel Mexican market. So far this is the only straight cinnamon tea I have found. If you have found a good one elsewhere please let me know.

Then it was on to trying a new recipe I discovered while perusing pintrest.com. Had to make these Sugar Donut Muffins. We all liked them and I will be making them again! Perfect to make for breakfast or brunch! You can find the recipe here: http://bakingbites.com/2008/09/sugar-donut-muffins/

If you have not discovered pintrest yet, you have to check it out! I am totally hooked. It is a site for everything creative, photography, wedding/event planning, recipes, and everything else!!!

I am still figuring out how to navigate through it, but I have already found great wedding ideas and several recipes I have to try. I even found an origami star pattern for my son to make.

(pintrest.com)

Next it was on to a nice cool morning bike ride. I have been taking advantage of breezy mornings and evenings to get lots of bike riding time! I love riding my beach cruiser!!!!

Then after a quick shower I headed off to take advantage of a wonderful groupon that I purchased a few months ago. I got a total body sugar scrub and 1 hour massage for $40.00!! Score!!

It was wonderful and much needed!!!! Another site you have to check out if you haven't already, groupon.com. You sign up to get daily emails of great discounts in your area.

After the massage I noticed Kat's Cakes was accross the street and was able to order our wedding cake.

I love Saturdays!!! I hope you had a great one too and have a wonderful weekend!!!!

Talk to you soon!!

Pancake Batter = Funnel Cakes who knew!!!!

My daughter loves to watch The Cake Boss. She recently saw an episode where he said that funnel cakes were pretty much pancake batter fried!!! I never knew!!! She wanted to give it a try and made some for dessert last night. She has a pic of the finished product on her cell, but I didn't get a pic!!! She made regular pancake batter per directions on the box and added a dash of cinnamon. She heated up the oil and then put the batter in a sandwich bag and cut off a small tip of the bag. Then she made squiggly messy lines of pancake batter in the hot oil and behold she had funnel cakes!!! We topped with powdered sugar and strawberries. The only thing we were missing was the whipped cream! Darn! Next time! I am sure that there will be many next times because everyone enjoyed them and they were easy to make!!! I will take pic's the next time! I had such a nice visit with my daughter! We did some shopping together and made dinner and dessert together. (We made a baked mac and cheese from scratch that was a big hit as well-- I will post the recipe and pic's next time I make it) Today I started working on these tiny milk cartons. Still looking for ideas for the embellishing. Do you have any ideas? I am going to make these in pairs. Come back soon for the finished product! Hope you had a great weekend! Be back soon!

A good weekend and a cookie recipe!

Even with 2 trips to the Lodi Grape Festival and painting a bedroom, I was able to notch out some time to try a new cookie recipe and make some crafts this weekend!!!
Cookie making, creating, painting, live music by Edgar Winter, and a great Beatles Tribute band called the Fab Four at the Lodi Grape Festival! What a great weekend!

I really like Monica's Lick the Bowl Good blog. I have tried several of her recipes and have had success with each one! I am looking forward to making her 3 packet pot roast one day this week.

What I tried this weekend was her No Bake Cookies. As you can see in the photo below, not many ingredients required. As the recipe claims there is no baking, just a little boiling on the stove. That wasn't too difficult, no candy thermometer required. These were pretty easy and they are very good! A mix of cookie and candy all in one!!!

Here are the yummy nutty chocolaty goodies cooling off.

Here they are cooled and ready for a co-workers birthday tomorrow. I packaged them in 4" X 6" bags. Hemp cord and a Stampin' Up Birthday Stamp cut out with a scalloped oval punch finish these off nicely.
Halloween crafts coming up.......

A little vegetarian cooking

A couple of weeks ago my very dear friend Terry had a mini stroke. She is ok and on the mend. It was a real wake up call for her and she has had to make a huge change in her diet. Her Dr. has her on a vegetarian diet.
I wanted to make lunch for her today, so I did a little research and found a couple of yummy looking dishes on the internet.

This is Minestrone with Sun Dried Tomatoes and White Beans. I found the recipe at Vegetarian Times.
Lots of nice crispy veggies, garlic, onion and seasonings. We topped this soup with some parmesan cheese and it was dee-lish!!! I will make it again. I may try diced tomatoes rather than sun dried tomatoes next time.

I found a recipe for Mama's Best Broiled Tomato Sandwich at allrecipes.com. I used light mayo rather than regular in this recipe. Didn't matter, these too were dee-lish!!! Here they are before broiling.

Here they are after broiling!!!! Terry, Sherry and I all agreed that they were delicious!!!! I will make them again!
This was a great lunch!! It was nice that I was off today and could take my time and enjoy cooking! I should do it more often! :)

Have a great weekend!

1 baking idea and a little bit of crafting

The recipe for these gooey S'Mores cupcakes came from Bakerella' s blog. They were the most complicated cupcakes I have ever attempted. But I did figure it out. If you attempt to make them, they do take longer than the 15 minutes it says on the recipe. I think it is more like 20. I thought they were ok, not over the top delicious. However, one of my daughters friends asked for the recipe and Johns daughter Gillian asked me to make them for her birthday. So try them for yourself and see what your favorite taste testers say. I finally shut off the oven for a while :) and spread out my craft stuff on the kitchen table. I made several boxes to fill with Valentine Candy and wrap up with ribbon and stuff some time soon. (directions for the box are at Splitcoaststampers tutorials)

I put together a few cards with items I had on hand. The flower on your right is made out of three graduating size circles. I wet the paper and scrunched it up, let it dry then glued together, and topped off with a part of a broken bracelet. Very easy! The paper doilies are from the $ store.

Every season I find myself using my favorite Stampin Up' Top Note Die. Started with Easter last year, then Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and now for Valentines Day. Guess that about covers the year! So I am certain that my investment in this die cut was a very good one!

Small # 4 white bags, scrapbook paper, ribbon and buttons and adhesive of course are all that is needed for this project. And the die cut of course.

Have a great evening! Talk to you soon!

I swear I am not trying to make anyone fat!

Honestly, I am not showing all these cool sweet recipes to make you fat! I just love baking and sharing this stuff with you. I am hoping to get off the baking binge soon and go on a crafting binge. But this weather is just really doing a number on me, and I think baking makes me feel better?? Unfortunately, so does eating this yummy stuff! So I promise to stop with the goodies after just a few more posts.

The Kahlua cake I made last night for the birthday at work was delicious if I must say so myself! But I wasn't the only one sayin' it! It was rich and creamy and oh so fudgy!!!! I will definitely make this one again! It does not need any frosting or drizzles of anything because it is so rich. Just a light sprinkling of powdered sugar will do the trick!!!

I just had to do it, I had to go back and visit Monica at Lick the Bowl Good today, and what did she have but an easy yummy looking recipe! My Favorite! If you haven't checked the blog out yet, you must. These are made with fresh sliced bananas, pecans, brown sugar, cinnamon and Grands Flaky Biscuits! Who'd of thunk it? Sorry folks, but I had to add this one to my list of must make! But I do promise to stay away from baking posts after I finish the current must try lists.

Just so you know there is hope of seeing crafts again on my blog, I am having Julia and some friends over on Saturday January 23rd for a Stampin' Up Valentines crafting afternoon! Of course I will be baking one of my must tries then, but we will also be making some cool paper crafts that I will show you as well. Talk to you soon! Have a great evening!

I didn't make the Blueberry Bundt Cake :(

I am sorry I lied! I said I would be making the Blueberry Sour Cream Bundt cake Sunday night. I ended up making chocolate chip cookies instead (due to laziness). I apologize. I will not make any more promises!
I really wanted this Pampered Chef cake pan! I had to borrow my friends pan for the last 2 cakes.
My wonderful mom, who knows my love of baking, got me the pan for Christmas!!! So now I don't have to borrow Jenni's pan, I have my own! But I did have to borrow Kahlua from my mom! (I will explain shortly) I made chocolate chip cookies for my co worker Bob, his birthday was Sunday. At 4pm today after Bob had gone home from work, he called me and said "Hey did you know it is Nate's birthday tomorrow?" I said NO I didn't know this!
So after work I got the ingredients I needed to make Sue's Kahlua Cake. I don't know Sue, but this recipe looked good and easy! Two of my favorite things!!!! I got all the ingredients I needed at the store except the Kahlua. I know my mom had a bottle of homemade Kahlua, so I borrowed a 1/2 cup from her. Next Bundt cake I think I won't need to borrow anything!!! If this cake goes over well at work tomorrow I will buy my own bottle of Kahlua :).

Recipe:
1 chocolate cake mix (w/pudding in the mix)
(the only one I could find was Pillsbury Moist Supreme Devil's Food)
2 eggs
1/2 cup Kahlua
1/4 cup oil
1 pint sour cream
12 ozs chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients except the chocolate chips. When well blended fold in chocolate chips and pour into a bundt pan (I sprayed the pan with Pam). Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes or until done.

I do promise to post again soon to let you know how it went over at work.

I do plan on trying more baking soon. I have to put my new pan to good use!

I don't know when or in what order, but I plan on trying the following recipes:

S'More Cupcakes that I found at Bakerella. You have to check this out! They look wonderful!

The Blueberry Sour Cream Bundt from Lick the Bowl Good (I was supposed to make this last night, sorry)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Nirvana (this one is for John, because he loves chocolate and peanut butter) This recipe was posted on our message board at work, so I don't have a link. So you will have to stay tuned for photos, recipe and reviews in the near future.

Cold weather + hot food???

OK, I am not sure if it is this cold dreary weather that makes me want to stay home and hibernate and cook, or the discovery of Monicas Lick the Bowl Good blog, or watching Julie and Julia last weekend, or a combo of all the above. But I have been checking out recipes like crazy and I just want to cook and bake!!!!
My mom had given me this No More than 5 Ingredients cook book some time back. I went through it and flagged a bunch of recipes I want to try. I think my mom bought this from a school fundraiser somewhere. I checked half.com for this book and they don't have this exact one, but if you search for 5 ingredient recipe books, there are others. First two things I tried were the Cheesy Potatoes and Artichoke Chicken.
I liked them both, my kids not so much. Too much stuff for them??
Here is the recipe for the potatoes: 1 can cream of mushroom soup, 1 cup sour cream, 1 bag frozen country style hash brown potatoes, and 2 to 3 cups of shredded cheddar cheese (I used 2 cups and that was plenty) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix soup and sour cream together in a 9X13 baking dish. Add frozen potatoes and stir until well coated. Bake for 30-45 minutes depending on the depth of your dish. Sprinkle cheese on top and bake another 15 minutes until cheese is melted and begins to brown. Serve immedietly.

At the same time I also made the Artichoke Chicken recipe.

1 15 oz can artichoke hearts drained and chopped
3/4 grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
4 skinless boneless chicken breasts-halved

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a medium bowl, mix together the artichoke hearts, parmesan cheese, mayonnaise and sour cream and a pinch of garlic pepper (I used garlic salt and black pepper) Place chicken in a greased baking dish and cover evenly with artichoke mixture. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes in the preheated over, or until chicken is no logner pink in the center and juices run clear.

Then on to dessert! This is the Snickerdoodle Blondie recipe from Lick the Bowl Good.

My kids sure liked dessert! You can tell by Zach's thumbs up! (but he wouldn't eat the chicken! )

And to mix all this stuff I have my handy Montgomery Wards 5 speed hand mixer that I received as a wedding shower gift in 1983 from my dear aunt Frances. This appliance is nearly an antique! haha! It brings fond memories of someone I love very much and miss very much!

Hate to do it, but I must say Bon Apetit! just one more time! I just can't help it.

I plan on trying the Blueberry Sour Cream bundt cake from Lick the Bowl Good sunday night! So check in again on Monday!!!! Have a great weekend!!!!

Do you love collecting recipes? I sure do!!!

I am home today with a very painful neck and shoulder. An ongoing problem for me, usually treated with lots of stretches and lots of ibuprofen. But it is getting too painful, so I am hoping for pain meds and muscle relaxers today. Waiting to hear back from my doctor.

On a happier more creative note. I love to collect recipes! I use all sorts of sources, magazines, cookbooks, internet recipes, recipes from family and friends. I don't cook that much, but I do love to collect the recipes. And slowly but surely I will get to them! Recently I made homemade chicken soup, and last night made homemade mac and cheese!!! I wanted to try it with asiago cheese, but Food 4 Less isn't the place to find it! So I settled for medium cheddar. It was very good! But I will try again with asiago soon!
Last night my friend Julia sent me a link to Lick the Bowl Good .
What a fabulous blog!!!! Recipes, recipes and more recipes. She sent me the link because she knew I would love this bacon and eggs recipe made from pretzel sticks, white chocolate melts and yellow M&M's. So very clever!
But not only did this blog have these cute novelty recipes, she also has lots and lots of other recipes! And the photos are wonderful!!! I am looking forward to trying her blueberry sourcream bundt cake recipe, and her snickerdoodle blondies recipe!!!
If you love recipes like I do, head right over to Lick the Bowl Good and check it out!

If you want some more inspiration be sure to rent Julie/Julia. It inspired me to break out some recipes. Bon Apetit!

A busy pre Christmas weekend!

We started our Saturday by volunteering to host a childrens Christmas party for a local non profit family organization. Several of us and our children helped the kids with crafts, a hot dog lunch, some cookie decorating and a visit with the big man Santa of course!!! It was hectic but fun!
My 11 year old son even enjoyed his time with Santa! I think he Believes! :)

I will never be too old to visit with Santa!

Later in the day we had a family party to attend. It was a great evening!!! We didn't get home until almost 2 am. I didn't wake the kids up for church this morning. But I went with my parents and todays music was Christmas carols of course! My favorite!!
The message was about finding PEACE, and these days who doesn't need to find PEACE. The message was very touching.

Then off to get my baking supplies for the week.

I tried to make candied walnuts, but I was out of parchment paper and thought I could use wax paper. I was wrong! The walnuts stuck to the paper! So that didn't quite work out.

Then it was on to making "Cracker Candy". I got this recipe from a friend at work. The recipe says that it is from Aunt Libby's Kitchen. I don't know Aunt Libby, but I am thankful for her recipe.

Ingredients:

35 to 40 Saltine Crackers

1 12 oz package of chocolate chips

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Instructions: Line a greased 9 X 13 cookie sheet with crackers, one layer thick only. Melt butter in sauce pan. Add brown sugar and stir until sugar is melted, blended and bubbly. Pour over crackers (crackers may float-that is ok) Place in preheated 350 degre oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven. Add chocolate chips to to top, spread until melted evenly over crackers. Add nuts if desired. Bake again for 15 minutes. Remove and cool. Cut into squares.

It took quite a while for the chocolate to set. Here is the packaged finished product.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!! Gobble Gobble!

Good Morning and Happy Thanksgiving! I look forward to a wonderful day with my family. I have so much to be thankful for today and everyday. My list of blessings is long, but here are the top blessings: My children, my parents, my friends, a great job, a home and a nice comfy bed. We often forget that there are many who do not have these things.

I am sure all my crafty blog buddies have much to be thankful for today. I thank my blog buddies for sharing their ideas and inspirations. Speaking of inspirations I thank my blog friend Jen over at Lipstick and Laundry for these cute little goodies! So simple to make!!!
Mini vanilla wafers adhered to a Hershey kiss with a dab of chocolate frosting, topped with a dab of chocolate frosting for a stem and there you have it Sweet Little Acorns!


Dessert is done! Doesn't it look yummy? This one is so easy and goes over very well.
This is the recipe:

1 package Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix

1 26 oz can of pumpkin

1 12oz can of evaporated milk

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups of sugar

4 tspns pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tspn salt

1 cup of chopped pecans or walnuts

1 cup of melted butter

Cool Whip or Rediwhip for topping



Grease the bottom of a 9 X 13 pan. Combine pumpkin, milk, eggs, sugar, spice and salt. Pour into greased pan. Sprinkle dry cake mix evenly over the top, sprinkle with chopped nuts. Drizzle melted butter over the top. Bake 50-55 minutes at 350 degrees. Serve with whipped topping! Dee-Lish! I promise!

No crafts, but a good recipe for dinner

Still don't have my craft mojo going yet. But I did make a decent dinner tonight. I have a lot of recipes saved on pillsbury.com. This was one of them "Zesty Italian Crescent Casserole".
It was fairly easy, no expensive ingredients and I get a thumbs up from my taste testers. I liked it too! It was like a crescent lasagna. As Rachel would say "Yumm-O". Made a salad to go with, and there you have it, easy, inexpensive and tasty!
If you haven't checked out pillsbury.com yet, I would highly suggest it. Lots of recipes to peruse.